We talked in class today a lot about the different approaches to assessment of ourselves as presenters and educators, and of the varying kinds of students we may encounter. I think one of the most important concepts to take away from these discussions is that as educators and presenters we need to be very self aware of not only how we are presenting information, but of why we are presenting it, why we are presenting it in a specific format, why anyone might want to learn it, and who that audience might be. Being aware of these factors will in turn help us to assess not only our own performance, but those of the individuals we are teaching or presenting information to.
I think one very powerful way to approach our roles as educators is to be aware that we are also always students. As educators we are tasked with teaching others and it can be easy to focus on that, but if we also take the time to learn from those students about ourselves as educators we can strengthen our methods, discard that which doesn't work, and add in things that we observe to be more effective.
We can get formative feedback as educators simply by being tuned into the reactions of our students, do they appear to be engaged or are they bored or frustrated? We can then adjust our approach to communicating ideas with them accordingly, if something seems to be working we can employ that method more often, if something isn't working we can switch gears. We can also get summative feedback more formally by creating questionnaires and surveys to solicit feedback from our students. Although this second form of feedback may appear on the surface to be more straightforward today's class made it very clear that format and wording can play a big role in how useful the feedback you receive is.
I personally have some experience with requesting feedback after doing a workshop, and I know that deciding what to ask and how to ask it can be really tricky. I found it very useful to use someone who was familiar with my presentation as a sounding board, asking them if they felt the questions were appropriate and if there was anything that they would add. Having feedback from a peer helped me to weed out some unnecessary questions and zero in on things which weren't obvious to me because I was so familiar with the information that it hasn't occurred to me to ask others how they felt about it.
I think one very powerful way to approach our roles as educators is to be aware that we are also always students. As educators we are tasked with teaching others and it can be easy to focus on that, but if we also take the time to learn from those students about ourselves as educators we can strengthen our methods, discard that which doesn't work, and add in things that we observe to be more effective.
We can get formative feedback as educators simply by being tuned into the reactions of our students, do they appear to be engaged or are they bored or frustrated? We can then adjust our approach to communicating ideas with them accordingly, if something seems to be working we can employ that method more often, if something isn't working we can switch gears. We can also get summative feedback more formally by creating questionnaires and surveys to solicit feedback from our students. Although this second form of feedback may appear on the surface to be more straightforward today's class made it very clear that format and wording can play a big role in how useful the feedback you receive is.
I personally have some experience with requesting feedback after doing a workshop, and I know that deciding what to ask and how to ask it can be really tricky. I found it very useful to use someone who was familiar with my presentation as a sounding board, asking them if they felt the questions were appropriate and if there was anything that they would add. Having feedback from a peer helped me to weed out some unnecessary questions and zero in on things which weren't obvious to me because I was so familiar with the information that it hasn't occurred to me to ask others how they felt about it.
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