Involving students in the pilot? Questions to ask?

Involving students

At the meeting today (this afternoon, 14th November) we discussed the observer also talking to the students at the end of the session, with the teacher/observee leaving the room for about 5 minutes to enable the students to comment directly to the observer.

I suggested it was up to the partners to determine if they were going to do this as well as alerting students if planned. Clearly the observee would need to schedule to complete/pause the session to enable this to occur and that would need factoring in to the session planning by the observer.

A reason for the suggestion was to get feedback directly from students on how they had experienced the session, to add to the observer's understanding of the session. It is a practice used in some institutions already and I think some of the partners in our pilot may well try this. I would also then include this aspect in the evaluation of the pilots. I leave it up to each pairing to decide.

One argument that might lead you less to doing this is if you feel students need time and to undertake other actions/activities before the real objectives of the session make good sense to them, so asking questions on their understanding of the session might be, at this juncture, a little premature.

Sp personally my views on doing this are quite mixed if I'm being honest - how do you feel?

Another point to consider is how you might get a fair representation of viewpoints especially if the group is a large one and/or if some students are especially vocal, and also/or negative. Just to think about ...

I did also offer to initiate a discussion around potential questions for the observer to ask the students and the following are my first stab at these - but please tell me if you think there are other/better ways or questions to ask. Thanks!

Questions to ask? 

You explain to the students the aim of the session and the objectives of the session, as identified by the observee on the teaching observation proforma.

Q1: Do you understand the aim of the session?
Q2: Do you think the objectives of the session were achieved?