Introduction
When I was an early career librarian, about 10 plus or minus (okay… mostly plus) years ago, I was a ridiculously enthusiastic instructor. I had an expressive, almost theatrical style.This was fun, both for me and I hoped for the students in the classes I taught. I had a sense, though, that maybe I wasn’t really reaching these students in a long-term way. Were they having fun in-the-moment but not developing any lasting information literacy skills? It was never clear to me. However, after attending a panel discussion about instructional assessment at some small regional library conference about a year into my first liaison librarian job, I heard about a method that I’ve added to my toolbox, changing how I evaluate and iterate on my teaching.
A panel member shared that they ask their students two simple questions at the end of their instruction: (1) what worked for them in this session, and (2) what did not work for them in this session. Getting responses to this simple set of questions struck me as potentially deeply illuminating and quite revolutionary if only I could just work out some of the details around how to use it in my own teaching! At this point, I don’t remember if the panelist mentioned how they asked those questions or how they received the answers, but I have since turned this basic approach into something logistically easy and immensely, professionally rewarding.
The Method
Good Ol’ Fashioned Paper and Pencil
When I teach a class where I want to get some immediate feedback on my instruction, be that in my delivery and demeanor, the content I present, the facilitated activities, my slides and additional resources, or anything else related to my instruction, I will bring a box of golf pencils and enough slips of paper to hand out to the entire class with three questions on them:
- What questions do you have right now?
- What worked for you in this session?
- What didn’t work for you in this session?
Best Practices
I have a few simple suggestions to get you going with this assessment strategy.
First, connect with the faculty member. Usually, I do this fairly informally at the very beginning of class, show them the slip, and ask if it’s okay with them, or if they have any questions about how it will work. I’ve never had someone say that I couldn’t do this, but it feels like a nice courtesy heads up. Also, when I bring this up with them, I mention that I may have some follow-up questions for them based on what I might receive from the first question on the slip.
Next, do not forget to hand out the slips sometime before the end of the class! I like to hand them out just before the very end, maybe during hands-on searching time, or a few slides before the end of a slide deck. It can be helpful to have the faculty member help pass out the slips. When slips and pencils are making their way around the class, I usually say what they are intended for (for me to iterate on and improve my teaching and get answers to their questions), I indicate that they are anonymous, I tell them I will post a Google doc on the course website with answers to their questions. I do really stress that I want any feedback they have and that it is okay to give constructive criticism.
Fairly immediately after an instruction session, review the question responses and create a Google document where you can offer answers. Group similar responses together: for example, I'll often get a lot of iterations on "Wait, how do I cite in IEEE style?”. If I need to, I'll tag the professor in that document to answer questions that only they might know the answer to.
Finally, post a link to the Google document right on the course website. If you don’t have access to this kind of a feature, as I hadn’t at a previous institution, email the professor or the entire class to get the word out.
Pitfalls to Avoid
Rarely has this approach flopped for me. When it does flop, it is either because I forgot to hand out the slips, or I did not give enough time before the students had to leave for them to jot down anything meaningful to them. When writing this blog post, it occurred to me that if I were doing a session that involved a slide deck, I could simply insert a slide at some reasonable spot before the end that reminded me to hand out the slips and explain them.
I recommend you resist the urge to turn to Google forms. Though they do seem simpler, I have never been successful using Google forms to get the level of information I get with paper and pencil for in person settings. The only context where Google forms have worked reasonably well for me is when I am teaching a fully online, synchronous class. In this case, I will pause for a few minutes before people start jumping off the session (whether that’s the end of the actual class or before!), share the link to the questions in the chat, explain that I really value student feedback, and essentially beg that they spend one minute before leaving filling out the form.
Reflections
Using these feedback slips has been really important to my growth as an instructor. Early on, it was clear from practically every piece of feedback across any class I taught that I just spoke too quickly and students were missing things. I admit, I still get this from time to time! But I have embedded a few practices to help with this; for example: at key moments in instruction, I’ll ask for a thumbs up or thumbs middle or thumbs down, and I’ll define those for the class. “Thumbs up means you are looking at the Scopus page, thumbs middle means you aren’t on the page yet but you are almost there, thumbs down means you missed how to get here and are a bit lost.” I weave in thumbs regularly to do a quick scan of whether I’ve lost folks or not. I’ve noticed that by trying a few techniques like this one, I get many fewer “You spoke too fast for me to follow” comments on the feedback slips.
I think a more important impact using these slips consistently over the last decade has had on me is that it’s become easier for me to hear and deal with constructive criticism. One person recently(!!) wrote that I packed so much into a workshop I led that it gave them a massive (emphasis on massive) headache. Early on, these kinds of comments would cut me to the core, and I would feel pretty down about them. Now? I say a little thanks in my head when I hear criticism and think about how to tweak my approach in subsequent sessions. On the flip side, it’s always a confidence boost to hear glowing notes about instruction sessions; these slips really generate a lot of those too.
I have been reflecting on whether this feedback approach has impacted faculty and students to any degree. I can’t be sure, as I haven’t done any sort of study, but I think there’s direct value in having a follow-up connection in the form of that Google doc, and indirect value to any students who I teach after implementing changes. Also, faculty members have mentioned to me that it is helpful when the feedback unearths questions from students about the assignment.
Finally, sometimes for fun, I like to seed a certain type of question. When I am explaining the slips in class, I’ll mention that for the first question, any questions they have are okay. I’ll suggest that they may be interested in what a librarian does all day or what a career as a librarian looks like, and that’s okay. Invariably, I’ll then get some questions along those lines and I’ll stick those into the Google doc for others. I realized librarianship might be for me when our biology librarian spoke to a new cohort of grad students (including me) and mentioned that he loved his job. So I like to use this assessment method as an opportunity to give students a glimpse into a possible career path!
I recognize that using these feedback slips does not surface long-term impacts on student learning, however I do feel they have helped me grow into a more effective, aware, and flexible instructor. As you prepare your future instruction sessions, I hope you'll try this method, and let me know how it goes! After trying it out once or twice, I wonder: What questions do you have? What worked for you? What didn’t work for you?