Weekly Teaching Note
May 5, 2008
Helping Students Self-Evaluate
One of the most important tasks that learners have is to evaluate their own progress and knowledge on the fly, before being evaluated by someone else. Many college students do not know how to do this, and have in fact experienced many years of being directed in detail by their teachers. They see professors as the total authority and are not trained to take responsibility for their own progress.
One journalism professor decided that he was tired of the iconic question, “What do you want me to do?” and that he would begin to train his students to self-evaluate.
The professor explains to his students that in life after college, their bosses are not going to teach them as their professors do. Learning to critique one's own work and improve independently, he points out, is absolutely necessary if one wants to rise in one's field.
He requires self-evaluations of all assignments in his courses. These are written documents that are handed in with each assignment. Students reflect on items such as:
- What were you trying to accomplish?
- How well did you succeed? According to what or whose criteria?
- What did you do right that you could repeat next time?
- What was not so good, that needs to be adjusted?
- Describe your creative process.
- What subtleties might I miss in your work?
- What problems did you encounter and how did you solve them?
At the end of the semester (at his school), students are required to reflect on their learning for the entire semester in the same manner.
To adapt this idea for your own course, make specific prompts at first since most students have never had to evaluate themselves. Gradually you can back off the specificity and have students generate their own prompts as part of the self-evaluation exercise. Tell them what you are doing and why, otherwise it will look as if your expectations are changing without warning.
Such student self-reflections should never be graded. Also, when students are unduly harsh on their work, it's important to respond with a more balanced view as the professor. Generally, students are not unduly easy on themselves.
Reference:
Cookman, C. 1998. Weaning students from dependency. pp. 66-67. In More Quick Hits: Successful Strategies by Award-Winning Teachers. Indiana University Press. Bloomington , IN.
Available in the Faculty Center Library.
