Frequent Feedback
While working as an early education consultant for Region 14 Education Service Center, we asked for feedback after each workshop. Sometimes the answers were merely an affirmation that we did well, especially the Likert scale-type questions. When people wrote out their feedback, however, that was where I felt I found the most opportunity to improve myself and my workshops. These questions seemed to elicit participants’ initial responses to the workshops, and often helped me see how to charge up or wind down how I presented. I was challenged by many people, some who I wrote off as naysayers, and others who gave real, constructive criticism. I cherished these, because by them, I improved.
As I read through Fink’s Creating Significant Learning Experiences (2003), I kept asking myself what the role of this feedback could be in college courses. Why don’t we ask for more formal feedback as we go along? Why wait for the course evaluations, the results of which will not even be seen until the next semester? Why not ask some of the same questions to the students of their own performance? I thought of a few reflection questions that could be helpful to ask on quizzes, exams, and even research papers. Some point to the material, some to the instructor, and others to the student.
* How do you think you did on this quiz/exam/paper?
* What could you have done better to learn the material?
* What could I have done better to help you learn the material?
* What else would you like to learn about this subject?
* What was the muddiest part of this unit for you? (I really like this one.)
* Did you put your full effort into learning the material and meeting the objectives for this unit?
* Given the opportunity, what else would you do to improve this paper?
* Did I do a good job of helping you understand the expectations for this quiz/exam/paper?
* What frustrated you most about the material?
* What frustrated you most about me?
Of course, some of these questions might be uncomfortable for students to answer unless they are guaranteed anonymity. Handing out paper slips for students to write on, or doing an anonymous Google Form or PollDaddy survey can provide such anonymity adequately. The key is to get feedback before everything is forgotten, before it all becomes an emotional memory rather than a memory of a series of events. Hopefully, you can get some great feedback to help you improve, even as soon as the next lesson!
What other questions might be helpful to ask students occasionally or frequently to help improve instruction?