Abstract
Health promotion teaching and learning is informed by the competencies of our profession, and importantly, it involves continually improving our practice so that, in turn, we improve the learning experiences of our students. The student voice is pivotal to this teaching and learning opportunity, and while we might seek student feedback after we have finished teaching a course, it is less common to obtain feedback in a regular and routine manner throughout the delivery of the course. This is a lost opportunity for students, teachers, and for health promotion practice. One mechanism to redress this gap is the use of “time-critical-feedback,” which involves a teacher undertaking the collection, analysis, and use of information about the learning experiences of students after each in-class or online session. Crucially, as a form of student-to-teacher feedback, time-critical-feedback can enable us to understand the impact of our teaching through the eyes of our learners, resolve concerns more quickly, enhance the joy of teaching, increase student engagement, and strengthen student voice. After all, our learners are the eyes, ears, and hearts of our impact.
Feedback in the learning and teaching context is more likely to involve an exchange of information from teachers to students and from teachers to teachers. It is less likely to involve the exchange of information from learners to teachers (Zierer & Wisniewski, 2019).
This latter type of information exchange warrants attention. Hattie (2009) contends the most powerful feedback occurs when feedback is to the instructor. He reasons that since learners make learning visible, they are best placed to tell us their experience about, for example, whether learning activity goals are achieved, learning activities are engaging and enjoyable, the content and instructions are understandable, and media resources are helpful. This could also include anything they want to know more about and their self-rated confidence about impending assessments.
Feedback presents us with signals for improvement (Universities New Zealand—Te Pokai Tara, 2018), motivates and encourages teachers, provides points of reflection, highlights what was previously invisible, promotes democratization, and a trusting climate (Zierer & Wisniewski, 2019). Equipped with student feedback, we do not need to assume that we know what has or has not worked well. The student voice can aid us to design our lessons and assist our learners.
Student feedback also allows teachers to model openness, vulnerability, and a willingness to learn. It also involves communication skills and the use of assessment both of which are reflected in the health promotion competencies of the IUHPE Core Competencies and Professional Standards for Health Promotion (IUHPE, 2016) and the Health Promotion Competencies for Aotearoa New Zealand (Health Promotion Forum of New Zealand, 2012).
My interest in student-to-teacher feedback stems from my health and disability work, which includes the application of processes to build quality improvement, engage with patients, and enhance clinical leadership (King, 2001; Ministry of Health, 2001). Following my appointment to an academic role in 2001, I was surprised by the absence of discussion about quality improvement in teaching and about the potential for student feedback to improve learning and for professional development. I observed that some teachers sought feedback at the mid-semester, but it was more common to do so at the end of a semester, which meant that any changes did not benefit the relevant students because the undergraduate course had finished. It seemed that the student voice did not occupy a central place in improving teaching and learning. While these observations sat uncomfortably with my constructivist position, they presented me with a learning and teaching opportunity to apply my health experience and implement a continuous improvement approach into my teaching by seeking “time-critical feedback” (TCF), which is requesting regular anonymous written feedback from students after each class.
My colleagues usually ask the following three questions about TCF, so I will briefly discuss each in turn.
Why collect TCF?
How do teachers react to the idea of TCF?
What processes are useful when implementing TCF?
Why Collect Time Critical Feedback?
TCF has benefits for teachers, students, and the workplace.
Teachers
A New Zealand report about collecting evidence of learner benefit expresses surprise about how few teachers gathered and applied evidence on the ways students benefited from various approaches to teaching (Alkema, 2011). TCF, as a form of evaluation, allows us to regularly check students practices and make changes, prioritizes and reprioritizes what is taught when and how, shares good practice with colleagues, establishes a quality improvement approach, and uses their TCF results and actions for professional development (Alkema, 2011; Universities New Zealand—Te Pokai Tara, 2018).
Glanz (2017) reminds us that with social media and the Internet, teaching needs to be as interesting as the concurrent information flow. This together with the speed of information flow suggests we need to obtain regular student feedback to find out whether our teaching is perceived as engaging or thought-provoking or deadly-dull for example and to make speedy changes.
Students
The student voice represents student experience (Alkema, McDonald, & Ryan, 2013). Students tell me that they feel exploited when teachers ask them to complete the standard university course evaluation at the end of semester and then they do not see a summary of the results or changes to the course. I sympathize with their view because the process of taking information is a one-way relationship and it is not respectful. It can be redressed, however, through reciprocity by acting “with” students (Dale, 2017, p. 64), and at the next class/online session providing students with a summary of the feedback and any actions that you have taken to improve their learning. As Stein et al. (2012) put it, you close the loop.
TCF shows students that their voice is valued and that the teacher is willing to be vulnerable. I suggest that risking vulnerability opens up the prospect of shifting the power relationships that usually exist between teachers and students and facilitates a more trusting and engaged relationship where students recognize the teacher is also a learner. Bishop (2003, p. 222) describes this as, “Where the teacher does not have to be the fountain of all knowledge, but rather a partner in the “conversation” of learning.”
For example, formal anonymous feedback from my class includes, “She is the only lecturer I know that really cares about feedback from students,” “She listens to the feedback,” and “She actually uses the feedback.”
Workplace
Many of our graduates work in the not-for-profit sector where consumer evaluation results are required to support funding applications. TCF supports health promotion practice, models “the seeking of feedback” as business as usual, provides an example of a tool, and with its focus on communication and assessment, it aligns with the health promotion competencies (Health Promotion Forum of New Zealand, 2012; IUHPE, 2016)
How Do Teachers React to the Idea of Time Critical Feedback?
Colleagues comment, “I have enough paperwork,” “I have a big workload,” “I am the teacher,” “Research is my priority,” and the “Performance-based research funding model does not care about the student voice.”
These reactions suggest that teachers are busy, believe they are experts and know best (Zierer & Wisniewski, 2019), have other priorities, and that TCF would be more work. Alkema (2011) offers some useful insight about these views. While acknowledging that universities have demands on staff, informed thinking is key to good teaching and learning and informed thinking comes from “the collection and use of data that are collected in systematic and purposive ways” (p. 6). TCF is a mechanism that can contribute to informed thinking.
What Processes Are Useful When Implementing Time Critical Feedback?
Types of Questions
Decide what areas of feedback are important. Questions can address enjoyment, engagement, clarification about the course paper-booklet, self-rating of confidence about assessments, feedback for guest lecturers, and importantly, “Whether there is anything else you would like to know more about.” This question is a door opener allowing the “shyest mouse to squeak.”
Explain and Commit
Introduce TCF in the first class, provide reasons for its use, explain what is involved, and outline the nature of your commitment to learners. Reasons can include your desire to improve teaching and sort out problems as soon as possible, support students with their learning, and show respect and value for their views. Commitments would include sharing the feedback, providing a summary of key points along with actions needed and actions taken.
Business as Usual
Treat TCF as “business as usual” by establishing the practice of time to complete the forms during the last 5 minutes of a face-to-face or online synchronous class. Paper forms can be used with small face-to-face classes (less than 30), otherwise there is a variety of time-saving technology available at universities or in the public domain to suit the type of questions you want to ask and enable students to respond via phone or other device. Where online courses are delivered asynchronously, understanding the impact of our teaching through the eyes of our learners is not less important (Anderson, Imdieke, & Standerford, 2011). Teachers need to determine how and when they can receive feedback.
Questions and Results
The questions need to be easy and quick to complete: one page and with six to eight questions, mostly open-ended questions and/or self-rating scales, work well. Examples could include the following:
What did you enjoy today?
Write down two to three words that best describe the your student peers’ engagement with the teaching/learning activities today.
Write down two to three words that best describe your engagement with the teaching/learning activities today.
What would you like to know more about?
How confident do you feel about the poster and oral presentation? (Rated 1-10)
How confident do you feel about the group project? (Rated 1-10)
Could today’s class be improved for you? (Yes-No). If yes, what would make the difference?
Anything else?
Comments for class guest? (If relevant)
TCF can be summarized and presented in text, tables, and graphs on power point or web applications. In my experience, students appreciate seeing the range of feedback—positive and negative—and hearing about remedial action. Role modelling the use of TCF can have surprising results. In 2018, my class included TCF in their “learners as teachers” class, which they planned and delivered over a 4-hour session.
The act of collating, reflecting, analyzing feedback, and determining remedial actions yields rich information for your end of course reports, discussions with learners and peers, and for career development.
Summary
Time-critical feedback embraces the essence of quality improvement and offers benefits to teachers, students, and employers. It is a useful tool to enable teachers to capitalize more fully on the student “voice” within the teaching/learning process in pre-professional health promotion programs.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interests with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
