Laurie Richlin conceives of university teaching on a continuum:

Parisi, FaCET 2009Laurie Richlin (2002) Blueprint for LearningConstructing College Courses to Facilitate, Assess, and Document Learning Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing

Richlin, L., & Manning, B. (1995). Improving a College/University Teaching Evaluation System. San Bernardino, CA: Alliance Publishers.

When planning steps to improve the feedback you receive in evaluations, consider the following options:

One minute evaluations

Muddiest Point

One Sentence Summary

Midterm evaluation

Put into practice one of their suggestions

Explain to the class the importance you place on their input.

Parisi, FaCET 2009

Angelo, Thomas A., and Cross, K. Patricia, Classroom Assessment Techniques: A Handbook for College Teachers.

San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1993.

Minute PaperDescription:

No other technique has been used more often or by more college teachers than the Minute Paper. This technique -- also known as the One-Minute Paper and the Half-Sheet Response -- provides a quick and extremely simple way to collect written feedback on student learning. To use the Minute Paper, an instructor stops class two or three minutes early and asks students to respond briefly to some variation on the following two questions: "What was the most important thing you learned during this class?" and "What important question remains unanswered?" Students they write their responses on index cards or half-sheets of scrap paper and hand them in.

Parisi, FaCET 2009

Muddiest PointDescription:

The Muddiest Point is just about the simplest technique one can use. It is also remarkable efficient, since it provides a high information return for a very low investment of time and energy. The technique consists of asking students to jot down a quick response to one question: "What was the muddiest point in ........?" The focus of the Muddiest Point assessment might be a lecture, a discussion, a homework assignment, a play, or a film.

* Improve instructor’s understanding of student needs and their perceptions of current material * Are immediately useable * Do not take up much class time * Are easy to administer * Are easy to analyze * Do not take inordinate time to analyze * Are flexible and can be useful for a variety of topics

Parisi, FaCET 2009

One-Sentence Summary

Description:

This simple technique challenges students to answer the questions "Who does what to whom, when, where, how, and why?" (represented by the letters WDWWWWHW) about a given topic, and then to synthesize those answers into a simple informative, grammatical, and long summary sentence.

1. Select an important topic or work that your students have recently studied in your course and that you expect them to learn to summarize.

2. Working as quickly as you can, answer the questions "Who Did/Does What to Whom, When, Where, How and Why?" in relation to that topic. Note how long this first step takes you.

3. Next, turn your answers into a grammatical sentence that follows WDWWWWHW pattern. Note how long this second step takes.

4. Allow your students up to twice as much time as it took you to carry out the task and give them clear direction on the One-Sentence

Summary technique before you announce the topic to be summarized.

Parisi, FaCET 2009

Responding to feedback

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From University of Oregon

Student ratings and comments are data to be interpreted, not a

direct measure of overall teaching

effectiveness. Such a recognition is important to put student feedback in proper perspective.

Mid-Semester Survey

THESE QUESTIONS are OPEN ENDED - - you don't have to answer every one, but if something comes to mind, fill in a response. There is no need to write your name on this survey.

I think it would help me if we did MORE:

The thing I like doing best/is most helpful is:

If there is one thing I could change about this course, it would be:

If there is one thing I would want the instructor to know it would be:

In this class I thought we were going to:

One thing I hope we have time to cover is:

In the last half, the thing I'd like MOST to concentrate on is:

In the last half, the thing I'd like LEAST to concentrate on is:

OTHER COMMENTS:

Community College 2001Honolulu Parisi, FaCET 2009

Talk with the class about their interim feedback, and explicitly put into practice one of their suggestions.

Parisi, FaCET 2009

Advantages of an online evaluation system are that it:

•Saves paper •Saves time (in terms of distribution and analysis of results) •Is more secure •Is more flexible, with opportunity for tailoring to particular requirements •Does not use up teaching time ( paper version is completed in-class) •Produces better quality qualitative responses

Disadvantages are that it:

•Is expensive to develop •Is more reliant on third party data sources (i.e. centrally-held data on which teacher teaches on which course, and which student is registered on which course, as well as on student email addresses) •Is vulnerable to technical problems •Produces lower response rates

Thoughts on Live vs. Electronic Evaluation Methods

Parisi, FaCET 2009

Using Blackboard to Collect Feedback

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Web Resources

www.uoregon.edu/.webloc

www.vanderbilt.edu/.weblocwww.utexas.edu/.weblocwww.ltc.uvic.ca/.webloc

teaching.berkeley.edu/bg#3051C3deoracle.org/.webloc

honolulu.hawaii.edu/.webloc

honolulu.hawaii.edu/ 2.webloc

Parisi, FaCET 2009