Metacognitive Midterm

As participants learned at last week’s workshop with teaching and learning expert Jim Lang , improving your classes and teaching can happen one small change at a time. For instance, why wait until the end of the semester to get feedback from students about their learning? Writing for Faculty Focus, Gillian Parrish suggests using midterm evaluations as an opportunity for metacognitive reflection. Whereas end of semester evaluations such as SAIs more often express what students like and dislike, a “metacognitive pause” encourages them to consider what is helping or hindering their learning so far. Parrish suggests creating a short, anonymous survey with open ended questions that function both to stimulate student metacognition and give faculty corrective feedback for the rest of the semester. Some examples are listed below; tweak and tailor to your needs.

Do you find the variety of things we do in class and for homework helpful? Why?/why not? What do wish we did more of and/or less of—and why? Learning experts often talk about the necessary “difficulty” and “disorientation” that is part of learning. Can you share about what has been most challenging for you so far in this course? (Disorienting even?) What have you learned from this difficulty? What helped you in overcoming the challenge(s)? Do you feel connected to the course material? Does it connect to your life or other coursework? How so? And how does this help your learning in this course? What am I doing that supports your learning most? What can I do better?