How useful are student ratings?

The book discusses the role of student evaluation of courses/instructors and points out the ineffectiveness of many questions commonly on course evaluation forms. Instead of asking students if the instructor was "engaging", which slants towards charismatic lecturers who many or may not be teaching well, the idea of seeking to assess what knowledge the students have gained from the course is more effective.

This causes me to re-think how I word evaluations for my training sessions. The book supports that student evals are important, but we should asked if the class or session "helped or encouraged them to learn" (p. 13) I like the example drawn from some Northwestern and Vanderbilt student rating forms:

• "Rate how much the teaching helped you learn."
• "Rate how well the course stimulated you intellectually."  (p. 14)

WOW!  That really raises the bar for instructors to consider and puts the focus where it should be.

What other survey questions could get at actual student learning/ effective teaching versus how engaging an instructor is?  What survey questions have you found most useful on your student evals?