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Exit Cards: A Simple Formative Assessment Strategy

We all want to be effective teachers, but how do we gauge whether our teaching has been effective? One simple way to gather informal, low-stakes feedback from students is through exit cards. In the last several minutes of class, the instructor can pose a question to the class, have students write their answer on a card, and collect the cards. Exit cards can be anonymous or graded; low-tech or electronic; and about pedagogy or about content. After reviewing the cards, the instructor can address student concerns either individually or with the whole class. Rather than relying on end-of-semester evaluations to evaluate how a class is going, exit cards can give on-going feedback to help instructors make decisions about instructional techniques, pacing, or classroom management. Exit cards provide an equitable way for all students to share their voice, and they can open up opportunities for further dialogue with students who may be hesitant to share concerns face-to-face.

Exit cards can be used to gauge specific, disciplinary content. For example, a Calculus II instructor might ask students: “What is the difference between the comparison test and the limit comparison test for series convergence.” Used as a formative assessment tool, exit cards can indicate whether more time is needed for particular content or if common misconceptions exist in the class. Exit cards can also be used to gauge pedagogical components of the course, such as course content and structure; participation, collaboration, and inclusion; use of technology; or groupwork. Consider this list of possible exit cards:

 

Course Content and Structure

  • How is the pace of this class? (Too slow, About right, Too fast)
  • Is there a topic from class this week that was particularly challenging? What is your strategy for learning this topic?
  • What is one misconception you or another student had about the lesson today? How would you address that misconception?
  • Do you feel this class challenges you in a productive way on most days? Please give examples of how.
  • How challenging have you found the material in this class to be compared to other classes you have taken? Circle one: Low, Medium, High
  • What were the main learning objectives from today’s lesson? Rank how well you currently understand them (0 = not so much, 5 = totally get it)
  • Do you feel this class is organized around specific learning objectives that focus on building your knowledge? Please give one example of how.
  • Do you believe that exam and test materials in this class are clearly defined based on specific learning objectives? Please give one example:
  • Do you feel the material in this class is meaningful or has interesting applications?

Participation, Collaboration, and Inclusion

  • How comfortable are you participating in this class? Give examples of types of participation that are comfortable for you and those that are less comfortable for you.
  • In class today, did you get to hear different ideas from your classmates? What was one idea/question/solution from a classmate that helped you understand something?
  • Did you have the chance to share your ideas during class today? Give an example of one idea you had and how you shared it.
  • What is one thing you can do to help a classmate feel more comfortable sharing incomplete or incorrect ideas? What could the instructor do to make you feel more comfortable sharing ideas?
  • Do you feel comfortable sharing incomplete or incorrect ideas with your small group? What could be done differently to help you feel more comfortable sharing ideas in your small group?
  • How safe do you feel in this classroom? Please explain. How comfortable do you feel in this classroom? Please explain.
  • Estimate how many different people you have worked with in this class this term.
  • Estimate how many different people you feel you have gotten to know better in this class this term.
    • Do you feel comfortable sharing your identity with them?
  • How would you characterize the inclusivity of this classroom? (Low, Medium, High) What can you do to help make the class more inclusive?

Use of Technology

  • Do you feel technology is used effectively in this class? Please give examples of how.
  • Estimate how many different types of technology used in this class you found helpful this week? (examples include course website, discussion board, videos developed, etc)
  • How would you characterize the use of technology in this class compared to other classes you have taken? Circle one: Needs Improvement, Good, Excellent. Explain your choice.

Group Work

  • Did you value the group activity today? Do you think the activity or task would have been better done alone?
  • Did you find your group members to participate equally?
  • Do you value the product of the group activity or task today?
  • Do you feel your group members listened to your contributions in the group activity today?
  • How did you make your group members feel welcome sharing ideas today?

 

For more information on the benefits and use of exit cards, consider

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13562517.2016.1167033?src=recsys&

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1469787405054237

https://www.edutopia.org/blog/formative-assessment-exit-slip-rebecca-alber

http://www.readingrockets.org/strategies/exit_slips

**Featured Image Photo by Michael Jasmund on Unsplash

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Whiteboard Animations

Now that October has arrived, most courses have had their first exams. As students come in to review their scores, one common refrain echoes through the halls, “I knew that, but I just couldn’t remember it!”. Though it might sound like an excuse, the empirical data is clear – human memory is incredibly fallible, even under the best of circumstances. Part of our job as educators, then, is to try and design courses that not only communicate information, but to do so in ways that promote retention.

There is no one ‘right’ way to do this; everyone has likely settled on a technique that works for themselves and for their discipline. It may involve overlapping concepts between readings and class work, intentional repetition of important ideas during lectures, or any number of other approaches. The common factor in all of these is that they require navigating something of a tightrope – too little engagement with an idea and it is unlikely to be effectively retained; too much, and students may get bored and tune out.

The incorporation of emerging instructional technologies may offer new routes to navigate this process. For instance, untethered lecture capture (ULC) allows for the recording and immediate dissemination of classroom discussions, which may be particularly helpful for students who may need extra exposure to absorb the details of arguments. Another promising route involves whiteboard animation videos, which simulate the process of freehand drawing accompanied by a detailed narration of relevant ideas. Although the data is admittedly preliminary, some studies have suggested these videos can dramatically improve attention and recall (e.g., Wiseman, 201);

These videos have been commonplace in commercial settings for a number of years, but there has been a recent explosion in interest about adopting them for pedagogical purposes. There are a diverse set of companies competing in this niche, each offering different options and price points, including Sparkol, Animaker, Powtoon, and more.

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Supportive Resources for Teaching and Learning

students and tutors sitting together at a small round tableWelcome back faculty! We are all now four weeks into our annual sojourn into a new academic year. During our journey as disciplinary experts, we have opportunities to develop and refine the craft of teaching at the college level. The University of Portland and several colleagues on campus offer resources to support our reflective teaching. These include the REFLECT team, the Untethered Lecture Capture initiative, the Ignite Grant program, CISGO, this TLC blog, our Teaching and Learning HUB, new Humanities Collaborative, and much more.

In addition to our own on-campus initiatives, online resources based at other institutions can also augment our efforts to hone our approaches to teaching. One excellent example is Carnegie Mellon University’s Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence and Educational Innovation. This thoughtfully designed site includes resources for course design and teaching, assessing both teaching and learning, education and technology, and solving teaching problems. This latter topic’s page breaks down the problem-solving process into three virtual steps: identification of problems by category, followed by identification of possible reasons, and ending with a set of potential strategies for addressing each possible reason for the problem. Teaching in higher education is often a puzzle for us disciplinary experts; some call it one of those wicked problems. The Eberly Center website provides us with a well-organized set of practical virtual tools for approaching our questions about teaching and learning.

We have now included The Eberly Center on our Teaching and Learning HUB’s Toolkits page. While you visit the page, take a moment to explore UP’s other resources for becoming a more reflective teacher at the college level.

Jeffrey White is an instructor of German and the Learning Commons administrator in Buckley Center 163. To discuss with Jeffrey topics on teaching and learning or how your students can practice and enhance their learning in the Learning Commons, contact him at x7141 or via email at white@up.edu.

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Setting boundaries

the ocean and the beach from an overhead perspectiveI recently had an experience that I suspect every instructor can relate to – I was just finishing up office hours and heading home when a student stopped by ‘just to chat’. Nearly an hour (and four or five topics) later, I was finally out the door. In hindsight, it struck me just how much trouble I had wrapping up that conversation, not because of the student, but because of myself.

There was no moment in which I felt that it was right to shut the discussion down. I genuinely like it when students are passionate enough about ideas to want to talk about them, so it felt like part of my duty to be there. I also didn’t have any imminent demands on my time, so it’s not like I had somewhere else I had to be. Even still, it felt like an imposition, like it was just too much.

I realized that the reason it never occurred to me to put a stop to things is that I had never really put much thought into my boundaries with students. Instead of articulating a philosophy or defining my principles, I just approached every interaction on a case-by-case basis. If a student wanted to talk about class, we talked about class. If they wanted professional advice, I could do that too. If I knew them well enough, I might even be able to provide some guidance about everyday problems. Students who would be better served by talking to trained professionals, whether that be in the counseling center or financial aid, would get connected to the appropriate people. But nothing was ever systematic or deliberate, and so everything was – at least potentially – a slippery slope. And my informal conversations with colleagues lead me to believe that I am not alone in my laissez-faire approach.

After some soul- (and a little Google) searching, I found an article that got me thinking about my own boundaries. First, I had to decide the topics of conversation that were and were not appropriate. That decision involved more than just thinking about how much personal disclosure I was comfortable with – it also required that I think about where I could offer expertise and where I could not. Next, I had to think about how much time I could commit to any given conversation. Again, this is more complicated than it might seem at first; busy office hours require a significantly different set of thresholds than unexpected pop-ins, all of which need to be balanced against other (non-student) commitments. Finally, I had to figure out a way to communicate these boundaries to my students. To be honest, this is the step I’m still trying to work out. Obviously, having something in my course syllabi is important, but I’m not yet certain how I would like to frame it. It also seems crucial that students who are not currently in my courses have a sense of this information as well, but the appropriate mechanism for distributing this information is far from obvious.

It is my hope that wrestling with these questions will help me create an environment that is more equitable for both my students and myself. In the process, I hope that it will help me be more focused and engaged in the time that I can actually spend with my students.

Featured Image: Photo by Sacha Styles on Unsplash

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Habits and Signs: Mental Health Resources from the Campaign to Change Direction

As the semester heads into its final stretch, my PSY 101 course finally makes its move from the foundational science of psychology (principles of brain and behavior, cognition, perception, development, etc.) into the applied use of psychology to address mental health concerns (the stuff many students thought they’d get all along!). There’s still lots of science to understanding psychological disorders and the treatment of disorders, but there are also rich opportunities to help students better understand the mental health issues they have seen and will see in their own lives. I’m not a clinical psychologist, and few of my students will go on to be licensed mental health practitioners. But we, along with all teaching faculty, will be confronted by mental health issues – either of our own, or of those we know and love. And we all collectively shape the way those mental health issues are experienced.

So over the years I’ve explored a variety of simple ways to help students take away some practical knowledge of mental health even if they don’t remember any of the scientific perspectives covered on the final exam. One resource I’ve been using in recent semesters strikes me as potentially useful for other faculty and academic staff: the Campaign to Change Direction.

The Campaign to Change Direction was “inspired by the discussion at the White House National Conference on Mental Health in 2013, which came on the heels of the Newtown, Conn. Tragedy” and includes as founding members the American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the National Association of Social Workers, and the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. It’s goals are to “change the culture in America about mental health, mental illness, and wellness” through a movement that: “frees us to see our mental health as having equal value to our physical health; creates a common language that allows us to recognize the signs of emotional suffering in ourselves and others; encourages us to care for our mental well-being and the mental well-being of others.”

The implicit idea here is simple but profound: mental health is as much a collective cultural endeavor as it is an individual responsibility. And while changing our national culture around mental health is both a worthy and ambitious goal, the same idea would easily apply to our local culture at UP. By emphasizing some shared habits and a common language, faculty and academic staff can help create a culture “where those in need receive the care and support they deserve.”

The shared language the Campaign to Change Direction suggests mostly come from emphasizing five “healthy habits of emotional well-being” and the “Five Signs” of emotional suffering. These are not rocket science, but being reminded occasionally of the importance of simple things like eating well, sleeping, and getting exercise probably can’t hurt:

And, likewise, the “Five Signs” of emotional suffering should likely make some intuitive sense – but psychologists think having some shared criteria can help us to recognize when others might need help:

One practical classroom suggestion here, remembering that our job as faculty and academic staff is to connect rather than to intervene, is to take advantage of UP’s mental health syllabus statement. It’s the time of the year where it is always a good idea for students to return to the syllabus and make sure they know what points remain, what tasks need priority, and how they can finish the semester strong. Why not also return to the reminder that when students feel emotionally at risk there is help available through the Health and Counseling Center? At the very least, we have some control over the local culture around mental health, and the capacity to ‘change direction’, in our own classrooms.