Monday, May 22, 2006

Assessing Courses and Classroom activities

We move from a focus on instructors assessing student learning to students assessing teaching processes, learning activities, etc designed. Theological education is a hyphenated word. There is the theological thinking dimension, there is the education dimension. Most of us wear our content specialization hats, but neglect our educator hats. For us to develop in our teaching skills, it is sometimes useful to receive student feedback.

One way to do it is to use the free online FAST assessment tool, a service provided by Mt Royal College, California. FAST stands for Free Assessment Summary Tool, and it can do wonders for our teaching practice.

Here are a few paragraphs from their FAQ page:
What is FAST?
FAST is an anonymous online survey tool that automatically summarizes students' impressions of a course and/or teacher and supplies the data directly to the teacher.

What does FAST do?
FAST allows a teacher to develop an online survey that students can complete 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Teachers can ask up to 20 questions (and change them whenever they want) to determine how students are finding their teaching and the course. The software automatically summarizes and consolidates the students' comments, in real-time, on the web or into a downloadable customized Excel spreadsheet.

The one thing I have found helpful about FAST is that it provides an extensive databank of questions to which you can receive Yes/No, Likert Scale, MCQ, and long answer responses.
Constructing your online questionnaire

In the database, you will find various areas which you can include for assessment. Below you will find a screenshot of the categories, which include Activities/Exercises, Activity Teaching, Assignments/Quizzes, Clear Expectations, etc....
Question Database

What I did was clicked on "Lecture" and these questions popped up which you can select from:
Sample questions on assessing lectures found in question database

I think this is a good tool for deans and faculty to use in order to surface areas they want/need to improve on. It is possible to customize individualized assessments for faculty and for courses to help us develop in the areas we feel we need to give most attention.