Ongoing Student Feedback

I read an article in the New York Times about obtaining regular feedback from students within the context of one professor's engineering classes.  The article can be found here:  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/29/education/boston-professor-uses-frequent-feedback-from-class-as-teaching-aide.html?_r=2&sq=feedback%20from%20students&st=cse&scp=1&pagewanted=all

After reading that article, I had realized that written student evaluations of my work had largely become a thing of the past for me.  Currently, I have been using only verbal feedback and only sporadically.  Using a simple format of a few key questions, I can find out what my students are preferring (outside of the first day questionnaire I give).

One could examine this practice from both a psychological and a sociological point of view, especially from Marxist and Symbolic Interactionist theories.  What is the teacher doing that influences the power structure?  Is s/he giving up power or gaining power by obtaining feedback?  What are the intended and unintended consequences of the practice?  Does this symbolic deference to the students and their view diminish the status of the teacher?  If so or if not, why?

I will personally be using this practice more formally this semester.


The Teaching High School Sociology web site

Evaluating Group Projects

A recent topic came up on one of my listservs regarding how to evaluate student work in the context of student work groups.  What grades are earned?  Who did most/all of the work?  What about those who disengage by social loafing?  Should they get the same grade as the grade-conscious person who spent the most time/gave the most effort?  I never liked the inherent unfairness of a "group grade."

Self-evaluation form I use for group projects.

In an effort to compensate for that, I created two evaluation forms.  One is a self-evaluation and the other is a written evaluation of the effort of other group members.

Those documents can be found on the site I created for documents from this blog below: 

https://sites.google.com/site/teachinghighschoolsociology/miscellaneous-docs

Please leave comments if you have suggestions for improvement.  I am always open to getting better.

Thanks,

Chuck