Small Group Evaluations

This week, I would like share a 1979 article on the "Use of Small Groups in Instructional Evaluation", a topic that I discussed with several faculty members this week. The service is referred to in several ways, i.e. "Small Group Evaluations/Feedback", or "Focus Groups to Gather Student Perception of Instruction". The Center offers this service in these forms as well as Graduate Seminar Group Evaluation. The basic process is as follows, although we would be happy to modified in ways to meet your needs.

A faculty member contacts the Center, requesting the service for a specific date/course. A Center facilitator visits the class during the last 10-15 minutes and, in the faculty member's absence, divides students into small groups. The facilitator then asks students to discuss the following four questions and write their responses on a shared paper:

1. What is contributing to your learning in this class (i.e., what is going well)?

2. What might need improvement to enhance my learning?

3. What is one concrete action which the instructor could do now that might improve your learning?

4. What one word would describe how you feel about this course?

The facilitator walks around the room answering students questions, encouraging honesty, as the data will be anonymous and provides prompts. After the session, the facilitator summarizes the student responses, performing a trend analysis and creates an anonymous data set in aggregate to discuss with the faculty.