Start-Stop-Continue: Real-time Student Feedback for Iterative Course Improvements

Jen Manly | CMNS Terrapin Teachers

Abstract

We’ve all been there: You open up end of course evaluations to feedback that, while useful, you wish you had received earlier. And why not? Teaching should be a highly iterative job, with instructors regularly assessing both our process (how did I teach the material?) and our product (what did my students learn? Are they moving closer to mastery?).

While student performance on assessments and observational data provide excellent tools for assessing our product, assessing the process requires a little more effort, because it’s nearly impossible to evaluate our teaching without involving the primary stakeholders: our students.

In this presentation, we describe how to implement a powerful tool for process reflection: The retrospective. Borrowed from agile software development, a retrospective allows instructors to explore what is going well, what we could do better, and to create actionable commitments for our next iteration. When applied to our teaching practices, the result is immediate improvements to our course: additional resources or scaffolds, identifying what is causing confusion, or changes in methodology to support student learning. This powerful exercise takes students fifteen minutes to suggest changes or identify trouble spots early. Retrospectives lead to a more effective course, while also building student-instructor trust. Most importantly, they’re an easy and effective way to ensure our teaching strategies and resources are meeting the needs of our students, while challenging us to commit to continuous growth and improvement… exactly what we expect from students.

Presentation

Start-Stop-Continue Presentation

Start-Stop-Continue Template