Feedback and evaluation
4.6.5.1
Formative feedback
4.6.5.2 Action point
4.6.5.3 Feedback and action research
4.6.5.4 Summative feedback
4.6.5.5 Action point
4.6.5.1
Formative feedback
If you gather feedback on an ongoing basis you can continually adapt your
course to suit your particular class. This is true whatever approach or
method you adopt, but it is especially important when you adopt a new
approach. This type of ongoing feedback, aimed at continual improvement
and 'fine-tuning', is often referred to as formative evaluation.
Formative evaluation can be carried out formally, with questionnaires or designated feedback sessions in class time, or via an elected class representative, but there is a danger with some of these methods (especially questionnaires) of the students getting 'feedback fatigue' if they are done too often. I favour much quicker, less 'scientific' but also less obtrusive techniques, like giving each student a small-size sticky note during class and asking them write down their impressions of that class, or a particular activity, for collection at the end of class. These little notes are great because students don't sign them, so they are more likely to be frank, and the small size means they feel free to write anything from a single word (or sometimes just a smiley face) to several sentences in very tiny writing on both sides.
You can ask for very focused feedback, eg 'For the game we have just done, please give the game three scores by writing 3 numbers on your sticky note: the first score is for how much you enjoyed it, 0 = not at all, 3 = a lot (and 1 and 2 are somewhere in between); the second score is for how useful it was for your learning, 0 = not at all, 3 = very useful, the third score is for how much you want to do this sort of game again in class, 0 = never again, 3 = a lot'; or 'Please write down one suggestion to help me make your classes better' (Once when I did this several students said 'Please speak more slowly' - a very clear message!).
Sometimes I take a quick class vote after an activity or set of activities, especially if they are new, on whether the activity was useful and if we should do this sort of activity again. I also chat to students during and outside class about which sorts of activity they enjoy, or find helpful, like least, and why, etc. If I have done a sticky-note feedback I usually write a letter to the class (in the target language, with a copy for each student), summarizing the things they said, and telling them what I will try to do in response, or explaining why I feel I can't do anything. This is a wonderful authentic reading text for the students, and they are usually highly motivated to read it. It also does wonders for teacher-student rapport, as students can see that their opinions and ideas are being taken seriously.
- Have a brainstorming session on how you could elicit formative feedback from your students.
- From your ideas, select the ones that you would like to use in your course, and think about when they will take place. Try to leave spaces, and have ideas for spontaneous feedback activities when suitable occasions arise in class.
4.6.5.3
Feedback and action research
The first module of the DELPHI
programme, on teacher beliefs, introduces the idea of action research.
In fact, if you are treating your regular, or continuous feedback efforts
as a way of gathering information that can help you to think about your
teaching in terms of what works or doesn't work, and why, and identifying
specific issues or problems to address, you are already half way to doing
action research. Responding to feedback is the 'action' bit of action
research, and following up your action by observing its effects, reflecting
on these, and then taking further action takes you into the next action
research cycle. This would be a good time to go back to Module
1 to revisit the section on action research, and to think about how
introducing TBL would be a good opportunity to do some action research.
4.6.5.4
Summative feedback
It is now commonplace in further and higher education institutions in
the UK to conduct end of course evaluations, ie to gather summative feedback,
for each of the subjects the students have taken.
These are nearly always done by a questionnaire, often in a standard format designed for use across the institution. These evaluations are normally conducted for purposes of accountability, to measure overall 'customer satisfaction' and to be presented to auditors conducting teaching quality assessments.
However, they can be seen as part of a longer term process of formative evaluation from one course to the next, assuming the teacher involved is allowed to see them or is at least given a copy of the collated results (this doesn't always happen automatically - you may have to ask!), and that the types of questions asked give sufficiently informative responses on which to form the basis of future action. For example, an average 'satisfaction' score of 3.2, calculated from 12 responses to a rating scale of 1 (low) to 5 (high), tells you only that on average the class was reasonably satisfied with the course. It does not tell you which aspects were very satisfactory and which were less so, or why, or even whether most students were very satisfied but that the two who never actually came to class gave very low scores, dragging the average down.
For these kinds of reason I tend to treat end of course evaluations that were designed and conducted more for administrative purposes than for real feedback on teaching with some degree of scepticism. However, they are at their best a serious attempt to monitor and improve teaching standards across an institution, so they should not be dismissed as irrelevant. If you want to maximize your chances of getting good end-of-course evaluations from your students, the unobtrusive collection of regular formative feedback and action on this is an excellent idea!
- Find out whether there will be any end of course evaluation conducted on your course, and if so, what form it takes, who designs and administers it, who processes the results, for what purposes, who sees the results, etc.
- If there is no plan on the part of the institution or department to do this, or if you feel the results will not be very informative for your purposes or if you won't be allowed to see the results, consider how you could collect your own summative feedback. You could use any of the techniques suggested for formative feedback, but the questions may be more numerous and will differ in scope.
