Faculty Services

Small Group Instructional Diagnosis

A member of the Koehler Center staff will be available to make a fifteen to twenty minute visit to a regular class session to facilitate the expression of student opinions and suggestions about the course. Consensus views are written down and discussed privately with the instructor.

For more information, visit the NTLF's site on SGIDs.

Small Group Instructional Diagnosis (SGID)
Tom Creed, Coordinator
Learning Enhancement Service
St. John's University/College of Saint Benedict

One method for help faculty strengthen their teaching is the Small Group Instructional Diagnostic (SGID), typically conducted from about a third to about half way through the semester. After a preliminary discussion between the consultant and the instructor, the instructor prepares the class for the consultant's visit. The instructor is not present for the SGID.

The Process

The procedure focuses on the components of the course that the class as a whole feels are important. The particular variant of the SGID that we use at LES has the following five step process:

· Individual Writing

· Small Group Discussion

· Reporting Out

· Rating Key Points

· Sharing the Results

Individual Writing

Students first write individually for ten minutes, using a sheet that we hand out ("Small Group Instructional Diagnosis," the first of the handouts following this narrative). We ask them to write about (with specific examples):

· the components of the course/instruction that they like best,

· the components of the course/instruction that they like least, and how the course could be improved.

· what they (the students) could do to improve the course.

As part of their description, they should tell why they do/don't like that aspect of the course/instruction, and why the specific improvement would be valuable. We ask the class to focus on specific behaviors and their reactions to them rather than making blanket characterizations. For example, a statement such as "I don't like it when the teacher gets mad at 'stupid' questions. It makes me feel stupid, even when I'm prepared. I won't ask questions anymore." is preferred to "She's a lousy teacher." We also ask the students to rate the importance of the positive and negative components of the course that they have listed.

Small Group Discussion

We assign students to groups of 3 or 4, and we assign roles--facilitator, recorder, time keeper, and checker. Assigned groups minimizes cliques so that there is a freer exchange of views rather than friends getting together to continue a gripe session. We ask that each person in turn list their three most important positive aspects of the course. All students list their items before there is any discussion. This gets everyone's opinions on the table, and tends to prevent a dominator from controlling the group's agenda. After all have presented their lists, they are to discuss these components, and arrive at a consensus on the three most important positive components of the course. They then repeat this process for the negative aspects of the course and for the improvements that could be made in the course. The recorder records the group's final consensus on another sheet we hand out ("Group Report").

Special note should be taken of the third question. This is a variation to the SGID process we added a couple of years ago as we were discussing how to improve our consultation process. We wanted to make sure that the students spend some time discussing what they could be doing to make the class better. This is something many have not thought about, and our experience is that it works well at this point in the discussion. They have been focusing on the professor, and now seem willing to see the endeavor more as a partnership. We have heard back from faculty after an SGID that their students seem to be more cooperative, and work harder. Students usually come up at the end of the SGID and thank us for coming into the class, which also indicates to me that they found the process beneficial. They frequently comment on the fact that they had not thought about their role in the class, and found that particular component of the process to have been most valuable.

Reporting Out

Following the small group work, the groups report out during a discussion involving the entire class. We get all of the points on the board, then the class decides which items are the most important. This is usually done by way of reaching a verbal consensus. The major points are usually pretty self-evident.

Rating Key Points

We rank order the points for each of the three questions, then ask the class to rate the degree to which they agree or disagree with the group's consensus. We use the rating sheet that is included in this packet ("Final Rating"), which is on the reverse of the original sheet that they filled out. A graphical representation of this numerical rating is what we give to faculty member. We've found it to be a very important part of our procedure, since it tells where there is agreement among students, and the strength of feeling associated with each point. Most items show wide agreement among the students, but occasionally there are items that some of the class strongly agrees with, while another component of the class strongly disagrees with. For example, in Ann's SGID, there was disagreement on her personalizing of information, but wide agreement about lack of structure. The level of agreement on an item is important information for the faculty member. Another advantage of the numerical rating is that many faculty take data-based reports much more seriously.

Sharing the Results

We give the graph of the numerical results to the faculty member, then discuss the results with them. This is usually a sensitive part of the process, since the faculty member will often try to justify their actions for each of the negative points brought up by students. It is important to get the faculty member to think about the information as the perceptions of the students in their class, and not as an objective, summative evaluation of their performance as a teacher. They may well have good reasons for all of the "negative" comments. But since these are consensus statements, they needs to hear the comments and be willing to act on them, either by changing their practices or by communicating better to their students why class runs as it does.

Advantages of the SGID

This SGID technique has several advantages:

• Students feel that their voices have been heard. Our experience is that students usually feel powerless, and are more willing to work with a professor if they believe their needs are of concern to the professor. The SGID process by itself seems to have beneficial effects, even before the instructor makes changes based on the feedback from the SGID.
   

• It brings back into the group those with extremely divergent views. Students oftentimes feel that everyone else shares their opinions of events that have occurred in the class. When they state their concerns to their small group, they may find out that others interpret events quite differently. Because the group must agree to a statement forwarded to the professor, the anonymity of individual students is protected.
   

• Because an SGID provides more reflective feedback, the information is qualitatively different than that gotten in end-of-the-semester ratings.