Step 7: Evaluating the Course
It is important to find out what your students think of your course. Are your instructions clear to them? Are they receiving adequate feedback that helps improve their learning? This is when course evaluation becomes invaluable.
There are many ways to evaluate a course. Which method you choose depends partly on whether your course is by distance or by 'blended' methods and partly on what sort of information you want to find out.
It is useful to elicit feedback early in the course: aspects causing difficulties can be amended to avoid later problems and positive aspects can be built upon. The most commonly used evaluation method is the questionnaire. These are typically six to twelve closed questions (answered by ticking a box or ranking answers in order) with some open-ended questions (questions that allow the respondent to express an opinion answered by filling in a box or online form). Questionnaires can give you rapid feedback, but the problem is that, if the questions are not carefully worded, they can give misleading results. For example, if you ask students if they have enjoyed a session, you may receive positive feedback. However, this is no indication that they have learned relevant concepts. For this type of information, questionnaires can be used in combination with confidence logs. These provide a 'snapshot' of the students' understanding of concepts and can indicate areas where students are experiencing problems. For example, you can ask students to rank their confidence level in understanding specific concepts (usually from low=1 to high=5). Comparative logs, or logs that are measured before and after a class, can give a reasonable indication of learning development. However, the only true measure of how well students have learned a concept is by comparative pre and post testing. Concept maps are another excellent way of testing students understanding of ideas. You could ask the students to draw a concept map illustrating how concepts link.
More detailed evaluative data requires combinations of standalone and face-to-face methods - for example a questionnaire with a follow up interview with an individual or focus group. There are a number of different ways to conduct an interview: you can use open-ended questions (e.g. how did you use online resources sourced by other student groups?) or semi-closed guided questions (e.g. did the online resources used by other groups help you with your assignment?). There are advantages and disadvantages to both methods. The open-ended questions allow the students to express their views, but can be difficult to interpret. The guided questions can close down the responses. Focus groups involved students being engaged in moderated discussions. These discussions can be used to follow up answers to questionnaire questions.
This approach may be time-consuming but can be invaluable to your learning experience as an e-tutor, especially in your 'early days'.
If you are using 'blended learning' methods, it may be useful to have quick feedback from your students at the end of a face-to-face session. You could ask the students to write on a piece of paper the concept that they felt most difficult to understand: 'muddiest point'. Alternatively, you could ask them to write the aim of the session. This may provide some interesting reading!
You also need to record your own evaluation. For example:
how do you rate the learning activities and how does this compare to that of your students?
what learning resources can you reuse?
what would you do differently next time?
what was time-consuming? Can you save some time next time round?
Other resources on evaluation:
The LTDI (Learning Technology Dissemination Initiative) Evaluation Cookbook offers an excellent overview of all these evaluation methods found on at the LTDI Website
'Muddiest Point' method found on the Campus Technology Website
One minute paper found on the Teaching Resource Center Website
