Happy March from the GSTA!

We asked the grad students to describe a time a student positively impacted their teaching and here’s what they had to say!

 

Chair: Alexa Sacchi (they/them), University of Toronto - St.George:

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, I've become more flexible in accommodating students, as long as their requests are reasonable. One student in my class had accessibility accommodations, which included being exempt from oral presentations due to anxiety. This presented a challenge, as the course required three in-class presentations. I reached out to the student to emphasize the importance of presenting their research and reassured them that everyone feels nervous, but I also offered two accommodations: they could present only to me and the TA or record a video of their presentation. For the first presentation, the student chose to present to me and the TA and did very well. By the time the second presentation arrived, the student felt comfortable enough to present in front of the entire class, due to the small class size and supportive environment. At the end of the semester, they expressed gratitude for my flexibility, noting that many other instructors had not been as accommodating, which helped them feel more confident and enjoy the class. I believe that fostering a positive environment for students is essential, and a little kindness can make a big difference!

 

Mel Ceren (she/her), CUNY Graduate Center:

At any given moment, students in the classroom are either grasping a concept with ease or struggling to keep up. As an educator, you may find yourself wondering, How can I get all my students on the same page? What am I missing?

Students often focus heavily on their grades, especially when they struggle with a concept. They may try working through it alone, seek help from you or school tutoring services, yet still not achieve the results they hoped for. When I was a teaching assistant, I saw students upset over receiving a B because it affected their standing in Research Methods, the next course in their program. With AI now widely available, the pressure to earn top grades has led some students to depend on it in ways that can cross into academic dishonesty. One student once mentioned that it would be much easier if assessments focused less on recalling information and more on reflecting on what they had learned.This idea is compelling. Traditional education often emphasizes memorization and exams that measure content knowledge. Shifting the focus to reflection helps students move beyond just aiming for a particular grade. It allows them to think critically about the skills they’ve gained, helping them grow into independent thinkers and capable professionals.

 

Josh Lovett (he/him), University of Illinois Chicago:

In my classes, I like to encourage students to engage in collaborative problem solving. In my statistics course, one of the best moments is when I see students helping others grasp a difficult concept. This also gives me insights into how students think about different concepts and stretches my own thinking about some of the things we learn. I absolutely love these moments!

Ashmita Mazumder (she/her), University of Toronto - Scarborough:

During a lecture on personality assessments, I discussed how we measure traits using self-report and behavioural methods. A student then asked, “If personality is stable, why do people behave so differently across situations? And if it changes, then what are we really measuring?”

Their question sparked a rich discussion on the person-situation debate, and it made me rethink how I framed personality measurement. I started incorporating limitations of traditional trait models, ecological validity, and emphasizing situational and cultural influences on behaviour. That moment reinforced the importance of leaving room for uncertainty in psychology and teaching students not just what we know, but also the complexities we are still trying to understand.

Sherry Nguyen (she/her), University of Alabama:

One of the most meaningful moments in my teaching experience happened at the end of a tough semester when a student reached out to thank me. They admitted that, at the start of the term, they had found the class overwhelming and almost unbearable. However, as the semester went on, they felt that my teaching style, which emphasized engagement, collaboration, and an inclusive classroom environment helped make the course not just more manageable, but even enjoyable.

Later, as I read through my end-of-semester evaluations as a GTA, I saw similar feedback from other students. That’s when it really hit me: while content knowledge and technical skills are important, how students feel in the classroom matters just as much. When students feel welcomed, supported, and engaged, they are more likely to participate, collaborate, and actually learn, rather than just stress over the material. This experience completely shaped how I approach teaching, reminding me that creating a positive and inclusive learning space can be just as impactful as the content itself.

The Graduate Student Teaching Association (GSTA) is kicking off the new year with many new members! We asked the graduate students what their favorite concepts to teach or activities to implement into the classroom were. Stay on the lookout this year for some exciting new updates from the group!

Chair: Alexa Sacchi (they/them), University of Toronto - St.George:

One of my favorite concepts to teach is the replication crisis. I know that may be surprising, but I love going over the history of how psychological research has changed over the years. A lot of students are shocked to learn that some of the popular findings they learned about in PSY100 actually don’t replicate! Rather than thinking science is all doom and gloom, I like talking about how from this “crisis” actually made science better through open science practices. I love introducing students to concepts like pre-registration, and the many large scale replication efforts like the ManyBabies projects!

Mel Ceren (she/her), CUNY Graduate Center:

One of my favorite activities to incorporate as a new semester begins and fresh faces enter the classroom are ice breakers. Icebreakers are commonly used to introduce the classroom atmosphere, but students may be hesitant to start talking about themselves. I would recommend "Draw Your Duck," a humorous icebreaker that is a unique approach to start a session and get everyone interested rather than the standard "tell the class about yourself." In this icebreaker, students get a minute or two to sketch and name a duck, stressing originality and uniqueness above artistic talent. Then, students may share their ducks, which frequently results in laughter and inspires discussions on community-driven solutions to ecological and even climate change. 

Josh Lovett (he/him), University of Illinois Chicago:

One of my favorite teaching techniques is using student-generated data to prompt class discussions. For example, I often use polling software to collect and compile students' responses, which then serve as a foundation for discussion. In my statistics course, I’ve used this approach by displaying students’ answers to specific questions and showing the resulting distribution. This allows students to visually analyze the graph and identify key features like modality and shape, fostering more engagement and excitement about the material! 

Ashmita Mazumder (she/her), University of Toronto - Scarborough:

One of my favorite concepts to teach is metascience- the science of how we do science. This topic dives into questions like: What makes research replicable? How do biases creep into study designs? And how can we improve the transparency and rigor of psychological research? Students are often surprised to learn that science itself is a work in progress, and exploring topics like the replication crisis or open science practices empowers them to think critically about the field. It’s a rewarding experience to see students shift from being passive consumers of research to active evaluators of how science is conducted and communicated.

Sherry Nguyen (she/her), University of Alabama:

One of my favorite activities for teaching is having the students re-enact the concept or act it out as much as possible. This technique not only helps students remember the material but also allows them to engage with the concept on a deeper level. Role-playing and interactive activities make abstract ideas more tangible and relatable.

Lindsey Rutter (she/her), Oregon State University: 

One of my favorite activities is to have students find a recently published article about a topic they feel passionate about. I ask them to summarize the article, write about why this research is interesting (encouraging them to get their classmates interested in the topic, too!), and have them connect it with the course content. I think it is super important to find ways to incorporate contemporary research findings into psychology courses!

Fall is officially here and members of the GSTA are getting back into their classrooms. With the new semester comes opportunities to try out new teaching techniques! Members of the GSTA wanted to share some quick tips with our fellow graduate student instructors and TAs.

William Rayo: One tip I’ve found helpful when teaching college courses is to use collective annotation on Syllabus Day. I post my syllabus in Google Drive and ask students to annotate it by leaving at least one comment or question. This encourages students to read the syllabus while also allowing me to tailor our class discussion on their specific questions and concerns. It’s a simple, interactive way to make syllabus day more engaging and helpful!

Alexa Sacchi: At the beginning of the semester, I would focus on working towards one big change you may want to implement sometime during the semester. I know it's tempting to want to overhaul everything, change course content/ lecture slides, or make major revisions to assignments. Instead, focus on perfecting or changing one assignment or lecture. This will remove a lot of stress and help identify whether the change was impactful at the end of the term.

Lauren Girouard-Hallam: I love to check in with my students at the end of each lecture. I don’t want to get bogged down in endless feedback, so I make it simple for myself and students by asking three questions: 1) Did they enjoy the days lecture? (yes/no) 2) Did they learn something new or understand something better? (yes/no) 3) Is there anything they would like me to know? (open response) This ensures that if anything is happening in the classroom (students aren’t feeling confident about a topic, a lecture felt rushed, etc.), I can spot and address it in real time. I want to make sure students feel like what they learn is adapted to what they need, and a little opportunity to share goes a long way.

The GSTA wishes you all a wonderful semester ahead and hopes to see you at ACT in Louisville next month!

The GSTA is happy to announce their upcoming workshop on April 24, 2024, at 6:30 PM ET:

Practical Skills for Graduate Instructors and Teaching Assistants: Leveraging the Science of Learning to Help Students Succeed

Session description: Join us to learn about common disconnects between the learning strategies students often employ and, most importantly, how to help them move towards more evidence-based, high-impact strategies. The presenter will share a variety of approaches for helping students understand and apply the science of learning that she has implemented across a wide array of contexts, from Intro Psych to upper-level courses and summer bridge programs to office hour meetings.

The session will cover examples such as the following:

·         managing 1:1 conversations with students who report that they either "do not know how to study" or studied for many hours but found it did not work as well as it had for them in the past

·         implementing a low-stakes, easy-to-grade written assignment to help students debunk learning myths and identify effective strategies

·         using exam wrappers to promote metacognitive reflection

·         facilitating an in-class activity that gets all students moving, reflecting, and talking about their use of strategies

·         using course content as a medium for a group project where students explicitly practice several of the most effective learning strategies in creating their end product

To register to receive a Zoom link and recording of the workshop, provide your email at this link: https://forms.gle/8gyPrdFEWectezLN9.

About the presenter: Skye Mendes is a doctoral candidate in the Developmental Psychology program at Arizona State University with an M.A. in Psychology from ASU and an Ed.M. in Prevention Science and Practice from Harvard University. She has taught a variety of courses across several institutions, primarily focused on Intro Psych and Research Methods. Skye has been recognized for her teaching at the departmental, institutional, and national level, receiving her department's inaugural Graduate Student Pedagogy Award, ASU's GPSA Teaching Excellence Award, and Society for the Teaching of Psychology's Wilbert J. McKeachie Award for Teaching Excellence. Much of the session will also be informed by Skye's past professional background providing academic coaching and directing tutoring services across STEM disciplines for the University of Rhode Island.

Would you be interested in sharing your own tips as part of GSTA’s professional development and skill-building series? Contact us at GSTA@teachpsych.orgto share your ideas. We welcome presentations from those at varying career stages.

by Lauren Girouard-Hallam, GSTA Chair

The GSTA is excited to return in 2024 for all your graduate student teaching assistant (or instructor of record) needs. We wanted to start this year’s Corners by highlighting some of the goals that we discussed in our February GSTA meeting, our first meeting of this calendar year.

Goal One: To support graduate student teaching needs through virtual outreach events.

New this year, we plan to offer one or more opportunities to engage with experts on higher education teaching and learning. In parallel with STP President Loretta McGregor’s Presidential Initiative for 2024 (“Cultivating the Next Generation of Psychology Educators”), while these virtual sessions will be intended primarily for graduate students, they are open to any interested educators or educators-in-training, including undergraduate teaching assistants.

Our first workshop will be led by Skyler Mendes, former chair of the GSTA and recent Wilbert J. McKeachie Award for Teaching Excellence winner. The workshop will focus on how we can leverage the science of learning to meet the needs of students in the classroom. Date, time, and official announcements about the event will follow shortly, so stay tuned for more information!

Goal Two: To build a community of graduate student teacher-scholars interested in honing their pedagogical skills.

We would love to connect with more graduate students this year than ever before, and to accomplish this, we will be focusing our efforts on two main initiatives: First, we plan to distribute a survey to current graduate students about when, where, and how they teach, and what sorts of mentorship or opportunities they are looking for in relation to their teaching. Second, we plan to build opportunities for current graduate student members of STP to engage with one another and ask questions, swap tips, or even just share teaching related news and updates. We’re still brainstorming what form(s) this might take but are looking forward to bringing you more opportunities to connect soon.

Goal Three: To grow the current GSTA group by bringing on new committee members.

We’re currently looking for individuals interested in joining the GSTA in the 2024 year and look forward to introducing new members soon. Stay tuned for more information on how to apply releasing in mid-March!

The GSTA is looking forward to a new year of opportunities to serve graduate student members of STP.

by Lauren Girouard-Hallam, Skyler Mendes, William Rayo, and Alexa Sacchi

Several steering committee members recently represented GSTA at the on-site component of the Annual Conference on Teaching in Portland, OR. Along with colleagues, we shared posters, gave presentations, and hosted participant idea exchanges (PIEs). We also collaborated with the Early Career Psychologists (ECP) group and APA Publishing to welcome graduate students and early career attendees to a joint dinner event. We would like to congratulate all those responsible for such a successful event and express our gratitude to those who administer STP’s travel awards, as several members benefitted from STP graduate student travel grants.

Alexa Sacchi shares the poster “Sustaining Long-term High School Outreach Programs: Lessons Learned from the Summer Psychology Research Initiative (SPRINT).” Alexa and colleagues were also facilitators of the PIE “Sustaining Psychology Outreach Programs and EDI Initiatives.”

Will Rayo and faculty mentor Iván Carbajal  present “Cultivating Community and Belongingness: An Experiential Approach to Enhancing Engagement in the ‘Thinking Like a Psychological Scientist’ Course.” Both were facilitators of a PIE titled “Talking about Race: Pedagogy in a Psychology of Race and Racism Course,” and Will also presented the poster “Insights from Teaching a Synchronous Remote General Psychology Pilot Course after Students are Back to F2F Instruction,” authored with colleague Sydney Tran.

GSTA Chair, Skye Mendes accepts the 2023 Wilbert J. McKeachie Teaching Excellence Award. Skye also served as a panelist during the live taping of a PsychSessions podcast episode and presented the session “Designing for Learning: Scaffolding Effective Learning Strategies and Transparently Training Metacognitive Skills,” co-authored with four of her former undergraduate teaching assistants.

Finding Balance After Tragedy

Submitted by Christopher S. Kleva and adapted from Teaching In Times of Crisis (Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching)

Throughout history, teaching has consistently been forced to adapt. More recently, teaching has rapidly evolved due to the exponential rate of technological advances in the 21^st century. Using the COVID-19 pandemic as an example, it is truly impressive how quickly professors and academic institutions adapted to transitioning to online teaching. I would be remiss to not also mention the flexibility and resilience of our students to also make that adjustment. Unfortunately, the increasing number of national tragedies, such as the recent shooting at UNC Chapel Hill, has also forced changes to academia. Much of the changes have been on the institutional level, including implementing safety measures (e.g., limiting public access) and providing active shooter trainings; however, there have also been dramatic changes to the role of an educator. As an educator, we are not only tasked with teaching our students the subject matter of the course but now, we are also responsible for meeting the emotional needs of our students after a national tragedy. The difficulty in this task is the lack of support and guidance as to how to best support our students during times of tragedy. Furthermore, as psychologists (supposed experts of human behavior), our students may look to us to have answers to the “why?” We must juggle wearing these multiple hats, while also attempting to manage our own emotions after tragedy. There is no perfect way for us to respond in our classrooms; however, there are a number of ways we can address tragedy and offer support to our students.

Taking A Pause (and Perhaps a Moment of Silence)

In moments of crisis, there is so much uncertainty of “what to do” and fear of saying or doing the wrong thing. First, it is important for you to be true to yourself, what you believe you can offer, and what you can handle. Secondly, Huston & DiPietro (2007) found that not acknowledging collectively tragic events was noticed by students and the majority expressed they preferred if their teachers did something – whether it be a moment of silence or something more involved such as redesigning the lesson. Simply sitting in the flood of emotions with your students can be impactful in showing them they are not alone.

Offer Flexibility in the Course

Trauma can have a significant impact on cognitive functioning. For example, post-traumatic responses to traumatic events can reduce working memory capacity (Pitts et al., 2022). As instructors, we can offer flexibility on deadlines and alter the syllabus schedule to reduce the workload shortly after the event. It can also be beneficial to have these decisions be an open discussion within the class. In times of tragedy, it is easy for students to feel like they have no control when the world around them appears to be falling apart; giving students the ability to make joint decisions may help them regain some degree of autonomy and empowerment. 

Provide Resources

As much as our students often look to us as their guiding light, it is forgotten that we may also be struggling. As a result, we may not be in the position to provide additional emotional support and THAT IS OK! As instructors, we can recognize the impact on our students and direct them to appropriate resources. For example, we can remind students of any university or school counseling services available to them. Typically, after traumatic events, such centers or services will offer additional resources including expanding their hours. Depending on availability, we can even invite an appropriate counseling professional to come into class and speak.

References

Center for Teaching (2001). Teaching in times of crisis (revised April 2013 by Nancy Chick). Vanderbilt University. Retrieved from https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/crisis/

Huston, T. A., & DiPietro, M. (2007). In the eye of the storm: Students perceptions of helpful faculty actions following a collective tragedy. In D. R. Robertson & L. B.    Nilson (Eds.) To Improve the Academy: Vol 25. Resources for faculty,  instructional, and organizational development. Bolton, MA: Anker. Pp. 207-224.

McLean, D. (2023). How Colleges Are Trying To Prevent The Next Mass Shooting Retrieved from https://www.highereddive.com/news/how-colleges-can-prepare for-the-next-mass-shooting/649335/

Pitts, B. L., Eisenberg, M. L., Bailey, H. R., & Zacks, J. M. (2022). PTSD is associated with impaired event processing and memory for everyday events. Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications, 7(1), 35–35.https://doi.org/10.1186/s41235-022-00386-6

Harnessing the Power of ChatGPT as Graduate Students: Empowerment not Replacement

Contributor: William Rayo

Just as computers and other technological innovations have streamlined many labor-intensive tasks and made new ones possible, an AI-assisted workflow with tools like ChatGPT has considerable potential for enhancing our academic workflow. This potential, though, must be balanced against the risk of inadvertently outsourcing tasks that serve as fundamental learning experiences. ChatGPT can be a powerful tool for repetitive time-consuming tasks such as content curation, generating course content, or generating instant responses to simple student emails. Its use can help reduce the administrative burden we experience as graduate instructors or teaching assistants. At the same time, it’s crucial to recognize that some tasks, while effortful, are essential for our cognitive and personal development as scholars.

As a graduate student who suffers from chronic time-blindness, balancing multiple projects/responsibilities can be a daunting task. Here is where ChatGPT can step in as an effective personal assistant for project management. By providing details about our tasks and deadlines, we can ask the AI to help create structured project plans, generate to-do lists, and break large nebulous tasks into discrete actionable components. We can ask ChatGPT to notate (or even generate) code for an experiment using Python, walk us through building an experiment step by step without coding (e.g., experiment builder in PsychoPy), or even to aid us in writing R code for data analysis. The resulting code is never perfect but serves as a useful starting point that you can build upon or modify to suit your needs. Graduate students can also use ChatGPT for brainstorming sessions, using its ability to generate a variety of insights and suggestions to aid us as we tackle complex problems. For any task that involves multiple people, ChatGPT can assist in drafting communication for lab members, helping articulate project updates, meeting agendas, or action items efficiently. However, while ChatGPT is a powerful tool, it's important for us to review and modify these plans as necessary. We have to remain actively engaged in our projects, using the AI as a tool for assistance and efficiency, not as a replacement for our own oversight, critical thinking, and decision-making. For example, rather than using the tool to come up with an assignment/or test questions, you can use it to brainstorm by providing it with some example items that you have already created and ask it to generate multiple exemplars that can serve as a basis for you to subsequently iterate on.

How to improve the quality of responses from ChatGPT

Effective use of ChatGPT often comes down to asking questions in the right way. While humans can often decipher the underlying subtext from “fluffy” language, machines benefit from concrete language.

Be Specific: The more specific the initial question or prompt is the more accurate and useful the subsequent response. A specific prompt helps focus the AI's output. Without a clear starting point, the AI is likely to return generalized or irrelevant information, thus wasting our time and effort. Instead of asking an AI tool to “generate test questions for behaviorism” you could say, “Generate 10 multiple choice questions that emphasize the conceptual difference between classical and operant conditioning.”

Contextualize your Question: Since our questions often involve a specialized subject matter, we can provide some context to guide the model’s response. This is particularly important for more complex or niche topics as this helps the AI understand the domain or angle we’re interested in, resulting in a more relevant and accurate response. For instance, rather than asking, "How does stress affect us?" you could ask, "What are the psychological and physiological effects of chronic stress according to the General Adaptation Syndrome?" For additional context, add “using examples of this psychological phenomena within the context of American Football” to generate examples in a context that taps into a student’s prior knowledge.

Use the Right Language: You can further specify the kind of language you would like the response in to meet your specific needs (e.g., academic, professional, or colloquial language). For example, "Explain the concept of cognitive dissonance in terms an introductory psychology student would understand."

Request a Format: By asking the AI to present information in a certain way (like an essay outline, bullet points, or a pros and cons list), you can save time on structuring the response yourself and get the data in an applicable form. For example, "Provide an outline for a lesson on the stages of Erikson's psychosocial development."

Step-by-Step Explanations: If you're preparing a lesson on a complex concept, you can ask ChatGPT to break it down into steps. This ensures that complex concepts are broken down into understandable components. It helps with both understanding and teaching these concepts. For instance, "Explain the process of classical conditioning in step-by-step terms, for an audience of introductory psychology students."

Iterative Questioning: Arguably the most important and difficult component since the AI may not fully capture your intent on the first try. By iterating and refining your prompts, you can guide the AI towards a satisfactory response. So don’t despair if you don't get the response you're looking for right away; try asking the question in a different way, or ask follow-up questions to get more detail.

When used in conjunction, these tips can greatly influence the effectiveness of a tool like ChatGPT. As an example of synthesizing the use of these tips, consider the difference between “Create a study plan for writing a literature review” vs. "Act as a graduate student mentor that helps their students manage their time to accomplish research goals in their pursuit of a doctorate in psychology. You will be provided with the goal of the student, their time commitment, and resource preferences. You will create a project management plan with detailed timelines and checklists. Only include relevant resources because time is limited. Respond to the following student request: ‘I want to organize my time in order to write a literature review. I can work 20 hours per week. I want to create a feasible plan for writing this literature review and having it completed in 8 weeks.’”

I hope the takeaway message is that we need to strike a balance. Tools like ChatGPT should be viewed as allies in our graduate journey, not the sole travelers. They can streamline our workload and help us generate novel ways of tackling a problem but shouldn't rob us of the hard-earned satisfaction and growth that come from grappling with challenging tasks.

Additional resources for AI prompt engineering:

Shieh, J. (2023). Best practices for prompt engineering with OpenAI API | OpenAI Help Center. https://help.openai.com/en/articles/6654000-best-practices-for-prompt-engineering-with-openai-api

Benefits of Using Student Response Systems in Large Classes

By GSTA Steering Committee Members

Kelly Gonzalez-Stewart and Madeline Bruce

Many of us know the controlled chaos of a classroom with hundreds of students, either as a student ourselves or as the instructor. In either role, it can be difficult to be seen and heard, leaving students perhaps feeling overwhelmed and overlooked at times. For instructors, not only is it challenging to get to know your students, but it can also be difficult to identify students struggling in a course so large. Recording student participation in larger classes is important to mitigate these issues and introduce many benefits into your classroom for both instructors and students. In this month’s GSTA corner, Kelly Gonzalez-Stewart and Madeline Bruce highlight some important reasons and methods for recording and managing student presence and participation in larger classes.

What is a Student Response System (SRS)?

A student response system is an instructional technology that can be used in a classroom to collect answers to questions from every student during the class, and their answers can be displayed in class or used to create a data report of the students’ responses. Students typically answer from their personal technologies. There are many ways a student response system can help instructors gain valuable information about their class.

There are a range of technologies such as Mentimeter, Kahoot, iClicker, Poll Everywhere, and more that allow a high volume of student responses. Regarding accessibility and equity, consideration for costs associated with the tool implemented is important. Requiring clickers linked to costly programs or websites for student response systems can be disadvantageous for some departments and teachers by adding the cost to the department or to the individual students. Consider using free or reduced cost subscriptions to websites that are affordable and do not raise the cost of the class for students/departments.

Reason #1: Students can help take attendance!

Student response systems are websites (sometimes programs or subscriptions) where students can record their name and answer questions created by the instructor. If you have a participation requirement in your syllabus, you can use the responses recorded by students to track attendance. You can also gauge participation by viewing how many responses each student provides and the accuracy of those responses. This can be an improved alternative or used in combination with attendance sign-in sheets, and it can track the student engagement and understanding of the content. Examples can be questions pulled from exams directly, retention questions regarding lesson content, or even just asking the students to reflect on how they’re feeling with open responses.

Reason #2: Keeping attendance keeps students engaged during class.

Using student response systems can help alleviate distractions in the classroom by giving the students an opportunity to interact with the content of the lecture and can assess immediate understanding of the material. Some platforms allow an instructor to host competitions that can be an engaging and fun exercise! This is a helpful way for students to interact with peers and the content in a large class size and increase participation.

Reason #3: Provides initial feedback on student understanding.

An instructor can prompt questions throughout their lecture and adapt their explanation of the material depending on the student responses in the moment, which is helpful when you are addressing more challenging topics. Teachers can use the accuracy of the student responses to proactively reach out to independent students that may be struggling, or it can be a “self-check” for students to ask instructors for recommendations to study frequently missed concepts.

Reason #4: Responses can be used for valuable feedback.

As last month’s issue addressed student evaluation feedback, student response systems can help prepare for feedback at the end of the year by adding checkpoints throughout the semester to provide feedback. Students can answer confidentially in open responses about what is working for them in the course and what is posing as a greater challenge. As teachers, this can be a way to gain insight and make incremental adjustments to the curriculum if necessary.

Navigating Student Feedback and Course Evaluations

Contributors: Lauren Girouard-Hallam and Alexa Sacchi

For many of us, the end of the academic year brings a myriad of feelings ranging from the joy of finishing final exam grading, relief seeing a less-packed Google calendar, and excitement planning a much-needed vacation. Just on the horizon, in the midst of sunshine, there is a looming cloud in the distance…the often-dreaded end-of-term course evaluations. But student feedback shouldn’t rain on a teacher’s parade! In this month’s GSTA Corner, Lauren Girouard-Hallam and Alexa Sacchi provide some tips & tricks for soliciting and navigating student feedback from a graduate student perspective.

TIP #1: Solicit small feedback, too!

Lauren: Not every piece of feedback needs to be a full-blown analysis of the course or lab that you’re teaching. My mentor teaches advanced development at the University of Louisville, and at the end of every class she passes out a blank notecard for students to provide two pieces of information on: one thing the student enjoyed about class that day, and one note for improvement, remaining question, or concern. Similarly, in the lab component of the graduate level stats course that I TA’d for this year, we sent out a weekly three question Microsoft Forms survey. It asked questions like: 1. What did you learn in the lab today? 2. What did the TAs do well today? 3. Is there anything you want us to know that could improve your lab experience? Sometimes, we only asked that third question! My point here is that not every evaluation needs to be time consuming or life altering. Most of the time, it’s about ensuring that students feel like they have a voice and a safe space to bring concerns if they need it.

TIP #2: Remember you’re not a superhero!

Lauren: We’ve all experienced it: that moment when you get an evaluation back for a guest lecture you’re proud of, a lab curriculum you’re sure you aced, a group discussion that you thought was so fruitful and exciting, and the response is less than glowing. Maybe someone thought your pace was too fast or your examples too corny, maybe they didn’t like the sound of your voice, or maybe they felt like they didn’t learn anything at all. It can be disheartening to hear that your work wasn’t received with unbridled enthusiasm and that not every student might have felt successful or content in the end. The balance is in knowing what you can control and what you cannot control. You do not have to fix everything that every student brings to your attention, particularly since students’ opinions may directly conflict (hearing “too easy” from one and “too difficult” from another) and also because some things are simply more “fixable” than others. We can work (to a point) on speaking more slowly and pausing to ask if anyone has questions. We might not be able to change when we need to move on from a learning objective or what software we use in class. And we definitely cannot help what we sound like or the ways that we prefer to be in a space. When receiving feedback, try to imagine what responding to that feedback would look like in action. If the action feels reasonable, try to implement it the next time you’re in the teaching space. If it feels like a lot of trouble or even flat out impossible, it’s time to move forward.

TIP #3: Pull construction out of criticism.

Alexa: Negative course evaluations can be difficult to reconcile with and hard not to take personally. But even bad reviews can still be valuable since they provide insight into a student’s perspective and can help us improve for the future. The biggest challenge is separating student frustration from actual concerns. If you’re able to, prior to course evaluations, remind students that if there was something about the course they didn’t like, to give specific examples and suggestions for improvement. For instance, comments like, “This was the worst class ever!” aren’t particularly actionable. Instead encourage students to provide specific feedback such as, “In my opinion writing 1,000-word weekly reading responses was difficult to manage with my other coursework,” or “The lectures went by too quickly, so having a recording or notes available would be helpful.” You can even provide examples as to what is helpful vs. unhelpful feedback and note that simply venting cannot help improve the class (or your teaching!) in subsequent years. After the evaluations are in, I like to implement the “24-hour rule” before trying to synthesize student comments: read the reviews, give yourself at least 24 hours to process your emotions (both good and bad), then come back and read again. In the second read through, I often have a level head and can start sorting through comments in a productive way. One suggestion is to separate comments into “things students like” and “things to improve” and make note of any repetitive comments. You can then categorize comments more specifically such as: solutions to integrate immediately, solutions to integrate gradually (i.e., over multiple classes or semesters), and future goals.

TIP #4: Identify one area of change for next semester.

Alexa: After reading evaluations and taking notes, you may feel a strong urge to change everything about the course! Course materials take so much time to prepare, so before scrapping everything and starting from scratch, pick one or two small changes to implement for next semester. For example, more immediate and easier changes can include speaking slower/ louder or adding learning objectives at the beginning of a lecture. Bigger changes may need to be slowly integrated across semesters to see how different classes react, such as major adjustments to course content/required readings, the syllabus, or highly weighted assignments. Changing too many aspects of the course all at once will make it tricky to figure out what worked and what didn’t semester to semester. You can also integrate check-ins throughout the term, especially for when you're trying new things. Keep in mind that every class is different. For example, students in the fall term may want practice questions or extra help preparing for their final exam, whereas students in the spring term may want more discussion in class about the content. Different cohorts will have different needs and goals for what they are trying to learn or develop, and it's our responsibility to support and try to meet them where they’re at.