Student Surveys Of Course Knowledge And Skills: Improving Continuous Improvement

The emphasis on curricula and program accreditation has moved from certification of teaching to confirmation of learning. Commonly adopted outcomes and assessment methods reflect the observations or opinions of the evaluator on the quality and quantity of learning demonstrated through various measures such as projects, presentations, or testing. Students achieve knowledge and skills objectives through the various learning opportunities, in other words the learning tools, offered them. Instructors must have knowledge of student preferences, perceptions, and responses to the tools offered the students in the continuous improvement process. Too often absent from student course evaluation forms are specific student reflections and opinions regarding their own learning objectives and the learning opportunities offered them. Without data or measures of student preferences, perceptions, and responses to the learning tools offered them and the opportunity they represent, the instructor who needs to improve some knowledge or skills outcome does not have sufficient information to know precisely where to modify, expand, or substitute student learning opportunities to optimize improvement in student learning outcomes. This paper presents a novel approach to gather feedback from students specific to learning tools to best improve course deign to meet outcomes objectives. A detailed questionnaire has been developed and used in several courses to gather information on the opinions and reflections of students on the learning opportunities offered them. In this unique survey, presented to the student not as a course evaluation but as survey of the student‟s opinions of his/her own learning, students are asked to evaluate their own ability to understand and apply the course knowledge and skills objectives. Students are asked also to rate the course various learning opportunities – lectures, text, laboratories, etc. – insofar as each opportunity aided their learning in each course objective. The survey has provided valuable new information to the instructor to measure and meet not only continuous improvements in pedagogy and learning opportunities designed to meet curricula and program objectives, but also toward tracking and meeting improvements in program retention, lifelong learning, and enrollment stability goals. P ge 15123.2