| Activity |
Brief Description |
Notes or Suggestions |
| Stop, Keep, Start |
Ask students to write down one thing they would like you to stop doing, one thing they’d like you to keep doing, and one thing they’d like you to start doing. |
This takes very little time. |
| Value Statements |
Ask students these questions:
- What is the most important/valuable thing you have learned in this course so far?
- What is the least important/valuable thing you have learned?
- What, if anything, is still unclear?
- Is the pace of lectures too fast/too slow/about right?
- How many hours a week, on average, do you spend on this course (including lecture, lab, HW)?
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Asking students about their time commitment encourages metacognitive awareness of their own learning. |
| One Sheet |
On a single sheet of paper, ask:
- What are three important things you have learned so far?
- What are three aspects of the class that have helped your learning so far?
- What are three things do you wish were different?
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The first question gets each student to admit that something is important. |
| Open Ended |
Assign these two open-ended questions:
- What is helping you to learn in this class?
- What is making learning difficult?
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The open-ended nature of the questions encourages students to think about lots of different (even non-academic) factors that affect their learning. |
| 3 Questions Index Cards |
- What do you love? What do you hate? How can I help you learn better?
- OR, (1) Which aspect of the course is most helpful to you? (2) Which aspect of the course is least helpful to you? (3) Are there any suggestions you would like to make about how to improve the course?
- For the final question, consider:
- one concrete suggestion for improving the course
- If I could change one thing about this course, it would be…
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Depending on the student, this approach might be too brief and general to get quality feedback. |
| Lab Classes |
These questions that emphasize laboratory and problem-solving skills:
- The problems worked in this class help me in working other problems on my own.
- The problems worked in this class help me in learning the content ideas in this class.
- I feel that I learn how to solve problems more easily when I work with a group of students.
- I find the laboratory lectures helpful in understanding the purpose of the experiment.
- I find the instructor's comments during laboratory help my understanding of key steps in the experiment.
- I find the comments on my written laboratory reports helpful in understanding the experiment.
- I learn more from the laboratory when I am given questions about it to think about first.
- I learn more from the laboratory when I am given questions about it to write about first.
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You can format these questions into Y/N responses, a Likert scale, or short responses, depending on the time available and the depth that you are looking for.
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