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feedback

professor and student meeting to discuss writing

Meaningful Learning through One-on-One Conferences

Graduate students frequently get the chance to meet one-on-one with their professors. Yet at the undergraduate level, especially during the first year, students rarely get that chance, unless they take the initiative to come to office hours or schedule a meeting.

This is unfortunate. I teach first-year writing, and at least once every semester, I meet one-on-one with each of my students, usually to review a draft of their first paper. My students love these conferences, partly because they offer a chance for personal contact with their instructor, and partly because the conferences provide them with uniquely meaningful feedback.

Megan Von Bergen December 11, 2017

How Students Perceive Feedback

The following conceptions of feedback were offered by a group of students studying to become physical therapists. They were asked to recall a situation during their time in higher education when they felt they’d experienced feedback. Then they were asked a series of questions about the experience and about feedback more generally: “What is feedback? How would you describe it? How do you go about getting it? How do you use it?” (p. 924) The goal of the study was to investigate students’ conceptions of feedback. Student conceptions involve underlying personal beliefs, views, and ideas, unlike student perceptions, which explore how the feedback is understood. Analysis of transcripts from the interviews reveal four conceptions of feedback held by this student group

Maryellen Weimer, PhD June 30, 2017

What Happens in a Course is a Shared Responsibility

One thing about student evaluations that troubles me is how they give students the impression that it’s the teacher who makes or breaks the course. A few instruments query students about their own efforts, but I’m not sure those kinds of questions make it clear that what happens in any course is the combined result of teacher and student actions. Early in my teaching career, I heard a wise colleague tell students, “It’s not my class. It’s not your class. It’s our class, and together we will make it a good or not-so-good learning experience.”

Maryellen Weimer, PhD March 29, 2017

Audio Reflection Assignments Help Students Develop Metacognitive Skills

From the bold honors student to the timid learner in the back row, reflection can help students become more aware of themselves as learners. But because we often rely on writing as the primary mode of metacognitive reflection, some students, especially those who struggle with college-level writing, may not experience the full cognitive benefits of reflection. For such students, the stress of writing can compromise their focus on reflection.

Karen Sheriff LeVan and Marissa E. King April 15, 2016

A FREE PUBLICATION FROM THE CREATORS OF THE TEACHING PROFESSOR

feedback

Meaningful Learning through One-on-One Conferences

How Students Perceive Feedback

What Happens in a Course is a Shared Responsibility

Audio Reflection Assignments Help Students Develop Metacognitive Skills

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