Evaluation has to be a process that gives not only feedback to the adult learner to improve but also establishes trust between the teacher and the learner. Brookfield (1990, as mentioned in Fenwick & Parson, 2009) emphasized that the feeling of mutual trust is established through being sensitive with the adult learner’s feelings. With this in mind, Brookfield suggested that a helpful evaluation has ten characteristics: clarity, immediacy, regularity, accessibility, individualized, affirming, future-oriented, justifiable, educative, and selective. Among these characteristics, I am interested in the characteristics of evaluation as being immediate, regular, and individualized.
What’s Missing in my Evaluation Strategies?
In terms of the evaluation as being ‘clear’ and ‘justifiable’, this is where I present rubrics and other required documents during course orientation and I refer to these same documents whenever I provide my rating to specific outputs. In evaluating my students’ outputs, I usually start with ‘affirming’ what they have done so far, and then zoom in to specific areas of improvement (being selective) that they need to work on in the next draft (being future-oriented). I make sure that I direct them to resources and concepts that will be helpful in improving their outputs (being educative). Throughout the evaluation process, I am available in-person or online to answer their questions and clarifications (being accessible).
However, I have to include in my teaching habit that providing evaluation should be immediate, individualized, and regular. Making the evaluation ‘immediate’ and ‘individualized’ is a challenge for me especially in my current teaching situation. I have to cater to more than 45 students in one class in a semester. Most of the time, I am handling three to four classes with roughly similar numbers of students (45 or more). Hence, time management is crucial in this matter especially when evaluating them both individually and immediately. On top of that, ‘regular’ evaluation may be overlooked at times when I am assessing each output as timely as I can. For my evaluation to be immediate, individualized, and regular, I have to look for strategies that fit well in my present situation.
How Important is an Immediate, Individualized, and Regular Evaluation?
In a study among pharmacology students, immediate feedback promoted deeper learning and facilitated self-directed learning (Badyal, Bala, Singh, & Gulrez, 2019). The same study found that the feedback led to students spending more time on the module indicating that it stimulated their interest. Hence, making my evaluation as immediate as possible facilitates students to be more active in their learning journey.
In terms of simulations, students who were given individualized feedback, although felt anxious, were more focused on the task at hand (Ahlborg et al., 2015). In learning sessions in which a skill to be learned has to follow a step-by-step process, individualizing the evaluation based on the needs of the student may work best. This is because not all students experience the same level of comfort or difficulty in a specific step; hence, knowing what they are good at and what they need to improve on can help me make the evaluation more individualized.
Finally, providing regular feedback is one of the most effective instructional strategies that can optimize learning among students (Hattie, 2015). Although I am trying my best to provide regular evaluation to my students in the research class, I am more enthusiastic to provide more time and effort for regular evaluation as this will provide better learning progress for my students.
Applying Immediate, Individualized, and Regular Evaluation
Knowing how immediate evaluation facilitates deeper learning, it is my responsibility as a teacher to incorporate it in my teaching habit. Even in a class with 45 students, I may be able to manage my time so as to prioritize immediate evaluation for the benefit of my students’ learning. One way I will be able to pull this off is by dividing my students into smaller groups of 5 or less and schedule at least 1 hour per week to have a conversation with these small groups. My main goal is to provide immediate feedback to their outputs as regularly as possible, which in this case is being done once a week. If I am pressed with time, I may still be able to provide immediate evaluation within the week in a recorded audio or video both for individual and group outputs.
Speaking of group outputs, regular evaluation is important as this will help me pinpoint the specific contributions of each group member. I have to make sure to increase individual accountability by providing a form where all group members are listed with their corresponding contributions to the output – both group performance and individual contribution are being evaluated as part of the student’s grade. This regular evaluation may be done through a scheduled conversation with the small groups at least once in two weeks. Hence, both individual and group evaluation can be immediate and regular if at the onset I am able to have a schedule which I as the teacher and the students agree on.
References
Ahlborg, L., Weurlander, M., Hedman, L., Nisel, H., Lindqvist, P. G., Felländer-Tsai, L., & Enochsson, L. (2015). Individualized feedback during simulated laparoscopic training: A mixed methods study. International Journal of Medical Education, 6, 93–100. https://doi.org/10.5116/ijme.55a2.218b
Badyal, D. K., Bala, S., Singh, T., & Gulrez, G. (2019). Impact of immediate feedback on the learning of medical students in pharmacology. Journal of Advances in Medical Education and Professionalism, 7(1), 1–6. https://doi.org/10.30476/JAMP.2019.41036
Fenwick, T. J., & Parsons, J. (2009). The Art of Evaluation: A Resource for Educators and Trainers, 2nd Edition. Thompson Educational Publishing.
Hattie, J. (2015). The applicability of Visible Learning to higher education. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology, 1(1), 79–91. https://doi.org/10.1037/stl0000021
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