How much to expect students to read outside the textbook, how to know whether enough of the class has understood a topic before moving on, and how to enforce curteous silence in massive lecture halls without being rude are all ongoing questions of balance. This balance is refined and tuned through your feedback, help me to help you.

That said, here's a (fairly?) representative sample of some previous student evaluation comments.

Biostatistics 318M (Lab Component, 2000) --- U. Texas at Austin

• It helped a lot that the instructor was very enthusiastic. Though the material was somewhat dry, humor helped a lot to make it bearable. Great job in my opinion.
• Pete kicked ass. He was much more skilled at communicating the matrerial in a clear logical way. I think you should hire him to teach the class himself. He is at once engaging, entertaining and informative. I htink that had he taught the course I would have gotten a lot more out of it.
• I thought lab was good. Helpful, but sometimes Pete assumed we knew more than we did (we weren't understanding material in lecture). Pete is a very good teacher - just go slowly. State the obvious, to some people it is not obvious, even if it is it's good to hear it out there. Don't assume we know too much - this if anything made lab less valuable than it could have been. More synthesis maybe would have been good - tying all concepts together. Pete was a very welcome contrast to lecturer approach.
• Lab was full of jokes and you told a lot of jokes & stories while although interesting most just distrated me from lab. Also you tend to trail off when talking so the last couple of sentences were mumbled and inaudible. The lab handouts were GREAT! You made it easy to work with fancy programs. Thanks.
• The instructor did an excellent job under the circumstances, and as the professor pointed out on the first day, "more prepared to teach the course" than she. Pete's "style" put students at ease, but sometimes translating his non-standard English was a distraction. I pity the poor student who's not a native speraker.

Biostatistics 318M (Lecture Component, 2001) --- U. Texas at Austin

• Good job Pete - kept the class entertained and taught at the same time
• The overall organization of the class followed a distinct pattern. I really liked the examples you used and how they related to real-life research.
• You are the most entertaining professor I've ever had :-)
• Your enthusiasm is awesome but you lack of organisation has made me want to cry and/or bring a gun to class on several occasions. Thanks for making me interested in statistics but help out your future students by preparing for lecture & creating a coherent thought that runs through the duration of the class. oh - & I love the stories!

Bootstrapping, Randomization and Experimental Statistics PSYCO 402/505 (2003) --- U. Alberta

• I would recommend this course to other students provided that they were looking for a source of specific information. Otherwise it might not be that useful. It's not for everyone. Dr. Hurd violates the assumptions of normality, but he is robust.
• Great course! I think there should be an official lab for the course so we can learn more programming techniques & tackle more difficult problems. I think that either 531 should be a course prerequisite or a couple of classes should be devoted to basic stats review.
• The UofA. needs to hire more professors like Dr. Hurd.

Behaviour in relation to genetics P372 (2003) --- U. Alberta

• Dr. Hurd is obviously very smart. He is just a bad teacher. He is only enthusiastic regarding things that are not part of the course i.e. the lives of past scientists - and because of this, you can only really hear what he's saying during these parts of the class. He has mentioned that he diesn't like parts of the material covered - and you get a feel that that he really doesn't care for any of it. Being in class rarely serves useful, and ofteen is a test of staying awake. To his benefit, Dr. Hurd is GREAT when asked questions one-on-one. Very helpful and patient. As far as testing goes - horrible.
• Dr. Hurd is an expert in his field. He was well-prepared & knowledgable @ all times. He was especially helpful outside the class. However, he needs to work on his teaching methods. He has to talk louder, even with the microphone on. Also, it seemed like you had to go home & read the textbook to clarify the concepts he was trying to convey across during the lecture (not vice versa).
• I have taken over 40 courses at the U of A and I found this course to be one of the worst I have experienced. The instructor was ineffective and unclear. He did not speak clearly and often went off on irrelevant tangents.
• I do appreciate that the prof tried to make what he saw as dull material at times, slightly more entertaining with personal anecdotes.
• Peter Hurd was a great instructor. He was very knowledgeable about the subjects he taught and full of energy. I liked how he added tidbits of his own research, or used some of his colleagues' research (or behaviour) to illustrate a point.
• The exam questions a bit too vague.
• I appreciate your enthusiasm for this subject. I did not expect so much genetics content in this course. I feel the course description needs to be altered. I think you may have focussed too much on the genetic aspects of behaviour in class, and perhaps the extra time in class could have been used more effectively by elaborating on the psychlogy side of the topics covered in class.
• The class was very boring and needs to be made more exciting.
• The enthusiasm shown about the subject made the class 100X more interesting.
• I thouroughly enjoyed Pete's enthusiasm & knowledge of the subject area. Very inspiring. The shuffling & mumbling still needs work.
• Instructor needs to be slightly better prepared and a little calmer and more focussed in lecture.
• Dr. Hurd is a very enthusiastic professor, with a lot of potential. It is unfortunate he lectures to his feet + hands rather than the class. Eye contact would do wonders for students participation in class. He has a very good understanding of class material but explains things in a rather complex way. I hope to see him teaching more courses and improving his teaching techniques. I think he is an asset to Psychology and will eventually make a very good and inspiring (for research) professor.
• The course got much better + more organized and the semester went on. It would be nice to have the notes up a little sooner than an hour before class. Research examples that weren't from the textbook were good, but not always clearly explained in the notes.
• The concept of the validity heritability is questionable, and after reading the assigned paper that showed the downsides of heritability, I feel that this course was a waste of time. [...] The instructor was very interesting though and obviously very passionate about his work which helped to make the class a little more interesting. I would have really enjoyed him as a proffessor in a different course.

Aggressive behaviour P403/505 (2004) --- U. Alberta

• Enjoyed the way this course was designed. - ie. lack of "exams" per se made the assignments projects more focussed on specific interest areas; lots of room to explore individual interst areas within the course subject area was refreshing in comparison to the majority of other institutional courses!
• The poster presentations should be done earlier in the course. This would have made me more comfortable speaking in front of the class.
• I admire the instuctor's humble approach with the students. Keep it up! We need more like him around!
• Although I think that the course was poorly organized, I really appreciate Dr. Hurd's enthusiasm and knowledge in the subject area. The grading scheme was not clear, nor the requirements for the projects/papers. A more explicit presentation of the course objective and expectations would make the class more coherent.

Basic Psychological Processes PSYCO 104 (2001, 2002, 2003) --- U. Alberta

• At the beginning of this course, Professor Hurd was witty, engaging and well prepared. As the course progressed however, he seemed to be tired. If he could maintain his initial energy he would be an excellent prof.
• The only complaint is that at the beginning Pete went way too fast, but once he slowed down everything went smoothly.
• You are a good prof, you make psych interesting, more than I can say for my other classes.
• Pete is funny and made this course way more interesting than it probably is.
• Pete was great but the material was a little dry. I guess that's first year psych for you.
• He was a pretty good prof. His notes were a bit bare but since they coincided well with the text, it was not an issue at all. Some of the stories he told helped me to remember what I was studying. Well-done Pete.
• Pete's stories (which related to topics) helped make the course interesting and fun during areas otherwise dry in material. He had great energy and enthusiasm which showed while teaching.
• I enjoyed this course. When he used personal experiences to illustrate concepts it was very helpful and interesting. My favorite class. I would have preferred a smaller class though so discussion of topics was easier.
• The stories Pete told were relevant and funny at the same time. The notes on the web were good as well and they helped with the course.
• The prof seemed to ramble on about unimportant drivel. Was over-enthusiastic about the same drivel. The text is the only real source of information, and even that was a waste of $140 or whatever absurdly high price the bookstore charges. Prof. Hurd was also disorganized. He hade [sic] to use student's notes on more than one occasion because he forgot his notes. Usually gets side tracked for anywhere from 5-15 minutes telling some story that has no relevance at all. Sometimes multiple stories are told in one class period wasting as much as 1/2 hour. Inappropriate language constantly used. Seemed to enjoy teaching but regarded it as a joke. The research portion was unnecessary. It is not my problem if the grad students can't find a monkey to experiment on. The fact that students are required to participated [sic] or do some equally stupid essay shows how pathetic this research is - Does the textbook not say that a diverse sampling of subjects is needed to generalize results?
• Peter is very enthusiastic and makes this 'boring course' more interesting. I really enjoyed how he did not elaborate on subjects other than psychology.
• The instructor knew the material he was teaching well and attempted to make it interesting in class. He was a bit disorganized at times (notes on the web late) and I found his notes to be a bit bare. The course itself is boring and the textbook is horrible and filled with useless Canadian information tidbits that I really don't care about. If the textbook was more concise, the information woudn't be as boring. I don't care about Canadian research grants in 1933 and other useless crap like that. Prof Hurd made a valient effort in trying to make the course interesting but the material and textbook overwhelmed this effort resulting in an unintersting and unhelpful class that stifled my desire to learn more about psychology.
• Great course, effective instruction. Awesome class
• Dr Hurd is nice and interesting but I think he should go to a Toast Master's class. He doesn't know how to public speak, he moves around too much, dances, waves his arms, doesn't finish sentences and never looks the class in the face (always looks at the floor or somewhere else).
• This is my 2nd year and this is the best prof I've had. I have even dragged friends who are not in the class just to see him teach. Prof Hurd was funny and enthusiastic and a good, good prof. His notes on the web were comprehensive, he treated students with respect and always stayed late to answer questions. He used examples that made concepts stay in your mind. This is the only class I enjoy going to and studying for. I have recommended him to other students.
• The professor seemed as though he may be more suitable for another subject area.
• Prof Hurd brings tremendous enthusiasm to the course (although he seems to be preoccupied with sex, drugs & violence).
• I found that Prof Hurd was interesting to listen to and he shared fun examples. However, I would have appreciated more development of ideas... I found some classes were repitious of textbook material only.
• More time giving textbook definitions would be helpful as although I could think of examples for some of the terms, I didn't always know exactly what they meant.
• On principle I disagree with the trend towards extremely large classes especially found at the intro level - this automatically lends the nature of the instructor to multiple choice exams and also is not productive in teacher-student interaction; very little opportunity to actually learn and apply knowledge/principles. It encourages blind regurgitation. I am disappointed with this class.
• Multiple choice exams for this exam are inappropriate. Long answer would be better.
• Dr. Hurd was excellent, just hilarious. Exams were too easy though. They need to be more challenging.
• It would be most useful if the instructors notes were more in depth as the lectures. There was no point in coming to the lectures if you did the readings because class times that was used was more so a 'review' of the material, rather than having the instructor teach it as though we were learning it for the first time.
• Pete was enthusiastic and genuinely happy about psychology and teaching. The notes on the web, textbook and his lectures were all well organized so they went together and were relevent to the exams. He was a great prof.
• Moved too much. Talked about non-relevant content. Boring. Repetitive. Not a good prof!
• DON'T EVER CHANGE THE WAY YOU TEACH!!!
• Notes on web good, but kind of took away from the point of lectures. Told too many irrelevant stories
• More examples of practice tests
• Please, please, please don't make the room so dark! That really bugged me!
• Too many typos in notes. Notes off web really random & disorganized, didn't help for exams at all & rarely made sense. Good thing for the text & exams based on that, notes arent organized to text book really. Prof needs to have more availability & reply to emails. Shuffling feet of prof distracting. Mumbling wasn't too bad. Don't really know what to write as notes from lecture very random & doesn't seem related. Prof needs to repeat questions asked in class so everyone can hear them. This is the most talkative class I have ever been in, say "Shut up!" more. For the past month there have been no research projects. I check everyday. Its impossible to get seven done. Apparently they custom-make the projects you can pick from depending on how you answer teh questionaire/mass testing but that's not fair, I need bonus credits too!!
• The review sessions were very helpful, as well as the webnotes. I have enjoyed this class and you have been a great instructor. A WebCT site would have helpful with a discussion board.
• The skittles are angry
• The instructor always ended class 2 minutes early and after one semester thats like 50 minutes wasted... or $25 of my money. Other than that the instructor was amazing, marvelous, fantastic and made coming to class a pleasure.