last updated: Jun 09 2007
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The University of Texas at Austin
Executive Vice President and Provost

Teaching Assessment: Practices for Graduate Student Instructors

Using On-going Student Feedback to Increase Teaching Effectiveness and Student Learning
by Karron G. Lewis, Ph.D.

It is the third week of class and things are not going as well as you would like for them to. You're not sure what might be wrong, but the students are looking either lost or bored. How can you find out what is happening now, before the end of the semester when students usually fill out their evaluation forms?

Anyone who has tried a new teaching technique in the classroom realizes the complexity of educational research. What works for one teacher may not work for another. What worked in the 9:30 class may not work in the 10:30 class. Methods of teaching that stimulated students in the 1980's may miss the mark with students in the 1990's. One of the few ways for instructors to survive all of this complexity is to continuously evaluate what is happening in the classroom.

In their Practical Handbook for College Teachers, Fuhrman and Grasha (1983) stress that to improve teaching and learning the evaluation process must have the following characteristics:

1. Evaluation must be continuous. You need to know where you've been and how you are progressing. Changing one's teaching behaviors is often a slow and painstaking task. Thus, you need to check regularly to monitor for improvement and be encouraged even by small signs of progress.
2. Evaluation must be broadly based.
   To discover yourself as a teacher, you need to get feedback on all aspects of your teaching:
   * methods - lectures, discussion, group work
   * support methods - handouts, reading lists, syllabus, homework
   * assessment techniques - tests, papers, presentations
   You also need to use written response forms as well as informal conversations with students, and you need some idea of what happens to your students both in and out of the classroom.
3. Evaluation must be descriptive and diagnostic.
   It is much more beneficial to know specifics (e.g., you mumbled, used too much technical language, didn't leave enough time for questions, etc.) than to hear that the class is boring or useless. Thus, the questions you ask or the forms you use for obtaining feedback need to be fairly focused.
4. Evaluation must reflect your personal goals.
   The purpose of this evaluation is for you to find out about your classes. You don't need to compare yourself with your colleagues. How well you are doing depends on your personal goals and objectives. You also need to take into account your personal style, your discipline, and the environment in which you teach in order for you to determine how effective your teaching actually is.
   
   This evaluation process can be enhanced by obtaining frequent feedback. Frequent feedback enables you to more effectively gage what your students are learning and how well your teaching techniques and strategies are working.

During a course or through a series of lectures, you can learn a great deal about "how things are going" by asking yourself the following questions:

1. Did the students achieve what I wanted them to? How do I know?
2. What was the most successful feature of the class session?
3. What was the least successful feature of the class session?
4. If I were to repeat the class session, what would I want to change and why? What would I keep the same and why?

Writing out your answers to these questions can help you reflect on why and what you are doing and whether or not it is facilitating student learning.

Another way to check the quality of your presentation is to audiotape one or two class sessions. As you listen to the playback, note in particular your phrasing, the clarity of your statements and questions, the accuracy of your statements, how interesting your presentation is, and so forth. You might also take notes on your presentation as though you were a student to help you analyze its organization and clarity.

Videotaping a class session will provide additional information concerning your body language, facial expressions, irritating mannerisms, and so forth. The CTE staff is available to videotape your class and assist in analyzing your presentation if you wish.

Classroom Surveys

One simple way to acquire feedback on your teaching is through the use of brief surveys or evaluation forms. These forms can be used at any time during the semester and can be tailored to ask the questions on which you are interested in getting feedback. (See sample form, Class Reaction Survey (pdf). The results from these can be analyzed quickly and you can usually make some adjustments in your teaching that will facilitate the learning of the students in that particular class.

In addition, the staff members of the Center are available to conduct mid-semester surveys using a written form -- such as the TABS (Teaching Analysis By Students) or a written form you and the staff member design. A verbal survey technique called the SGID (Small Group Instructional Diagnosis) can also be used. The CTE staff member will then help you analyze the data obtained from the survey and together you can determine what might need to be changed based on that data. For additional information on either of these feedback techniques, please call CTE.

Classroom Assessment Techniques

One form of continuous feedback is known as Classroom Assessment Techniques (CATs). Thomas Angelo and Patricia Cross at the University of California, Berkeley developed this concept and conducted studies on the technique in the early 80's.

Classroom Assessment provides the means for:

1. involving students and teachers in the continuous monitoring of student learning;
2. providing faculty with feedback about their effectiveness as teachers and giving students a measure of their progress as learners; and
3. classroom assessment techniques are created, administered, and analyzed by teachers themselves on questions of teaching and learning that are important to them.

In their book, Classroom Assessment Techniques, Angelo and Cross (1993) describe over 50 CATs that have been tested in classrooms around the country. One major premise of classroom assessment is that "Learning can and often does take place without the benefit of teaching -- and sometimes even in spite of it -- but there is no such thing as effective teaching in the absence of learning. Teaching without learning is just talking" (3). Thus, continuous assessment of student learning is necessary if one is going to teach effectively.

Classroom Assessment Techniques are not meant to take the place of exams or quizzes. Rather, they are tools to give teachers and students information on student learning before and between tests. Each CAT helps students and teachers focus on specific information about student learning and provides a record of student feedback that can be used to improve the quality of teaching and learning. You can begin using Classroom Assessment Techniques using the following three-step process:

Step 1: Planning

Select one (and only one) of your classes in which to try the technique. The first time you do this it is probably a good idea to choose a class you think is going well and in which most of the students seem satisfied. After you develop some skill in implementing and responding to the information gleaned from the CAT, then move on to classes that are problematic.

After choosing the course you want to focus on, decide in which class session you want to use the CAT and which CAT you would like to use. [Make sure you reserve a few minutes at the end of class for the students to respond to the CAT.] Several simple and quick CATs are described below.

Step 2: Implementing

Let the students know beforehand (at the beginning of the class period or at the prior class meeting) what you are going to do and why you are asking them for information. Assure them that this is not for a grade, only to help them improve their learning. Anonymous responses are preferred.

When you administer the CAT, be sure the students understand the procedure. You might want to write the directions on the board or on an overhead transparency. Indicate how long the students will have to complete the assessment. (The first time you use a CAT in a particular class you may want to allow a little more time for them to respond.)

After the students have responded, collect their responses and read through them immediately after class if possible. Analyze the responses by noting how many times the same types of problems are mentioned.

Step 3: Responding

Perhaps the most important part of using CATs is your response to the students. In this response you need to let them know what you learned from the CAT exercise and what difference that information will make. For some CAT responses you may be able to report, "Forty-five percent of you thought that X was the muddiest point, and Y came in second. Let's go over these points to see if we can make them a little clearer." For other CATs a handout might be a more efficient way to respond. The most important thing to remember is to let the students know what adjustments, if any, you are making in your teaching as a result of the information they provided and tell the students of adjustments they might make in their behavior, in response to the CAT information, to improve their learning.

Some simple CATs to get you started

Below are brief descriptions of five simple CATs that you can use immediately. If you would like additional information on a particular CAT or would like to know about other types of CATs, contact the Center for Teaching Effectiveness. (The numbers at the end of each CAT indicate the page number in Angelo and Cross.)

• The Muddiest Point -- This is just about the simplest CAT imaginable. It is also remarkably 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 Muddies Point assessment might be a lecture, a discussion, a homework assignment, a play, or a film.
  [This technique] provides information on what students find least clear or most confusing about a particular lesson or topic. Faculty can use that feedback to discover which points are most difficult for students to learn and to guide their teaching decisions about which topics to emphasize and how much time to spend on each. (154)
• The One-Minute Paper -- This versatile technique 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 then write their responses on index cards or half-sheets of scrap paper and hand them in.
  [This technique] provides manageable amounts of timely and useful feedback for a minimal investment of time and energy. From the student answers faculty can quickly check how well the students are learning what they are teaching. The feedback can help teachers decide whether any mid-course corrections or changes are needed and, if so, what kinds of instructional adjustments to make. Getting the instructor's feedback on their Minute Papers helps students learn how experts in a given discipline distinguish the major points from the details. The Minute Paper also ensures that students' questions will be raised, and in many cases answered, in time to facilitate further learning. (148)
• Applications Cards -- After students have heard or read about an important principle, generalization, theory, or procedure, the instructor hands out an index card and asks them to write down at least one possible, real-world application for what they have just learned.
  Applications Cards let faculty know in a flash how well students understand the possible applications of what they have learned. This technique prompts students to think about possible applications and, as a consequence, to connect newly learned concepts with prior knowledge. As they respond to the technique, students also see more clearly the possible relevance of what they are learning. (236)
• Classroom Opinion Polls -- Preview the material that you plan to teach, looking for questions or issues about which students may have opinions that could affect their learning. Choose one or two issues and develop a question or prompt and the response choices -- yes, no; a scalar response with several choices; a multiple choice response. Duplicate the form to hand out or put it on an overhead transparency. If the poll is short, the responses can be tabulated (possibly by a TA) before the end of the class session.
  This technique helps faculty discover student opinions about course-related issues. Students often have preexisting opinions about the material that they will encounter in courses, and those opinions -- when they are unsupported by evidence -- can distort or block the instructional message. By uncovering student opinions on specific issues, faculty can better gauge where and how to begin teaching about those issues -- and what the roadblocks are likely to be. In addition, Classroom Opinion Polling encourages students to discover their own opinions about issues, to compare their opinions with those of their classmates, and to test their opinions against evidence and expert opinion. (258)
• Pro and Con Grid -- This technique gives faculty a quick overview of a class's analysis of the pros and cons, costs and benefits, or advantages and disadvantages of an issue of mutual concern. Even a cursory reading of students' lists of pros and cons provides important information on the depth and breadth of their analyses and on their capacity for objectivity. This CAT forces students to go beyond their first reactions, to search for at least two sides to the issue in question, and to weigh the value of competing claims.
  This assessment works well in many humanities, social science, and public policy courses. It can also be used to assess students' awareness of potential costs and benefits or of alternate technical solutions to the same problem; used in these ways, this technique can be applied in many science and mathematics courses, as well as in preprofessional and vocational training. (168)

REFERENCES

Angelo, Thomas A. & Cross, K. Patricia. Classroom Assessment Techniques, 2nd ed. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1993.

Erickson, Bette LaSere & Strommer, Diane Weltner. Teaching College Freshmen. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1991.