What are UConn Departments trying out for SET+ so far? 

The department encourages faculty to engage in professional development related to teaching and learning. They favor a formative peer observation strategy of 1-2 times during each course.  As an alternative to the survey available through OIRE (quantitatively oriented), they have been encouraging an open-ended tool like Stephen Brookfield’s Classroom Critical Incident Questionnaire. Content analysis is used to generate themes for each question, and that are provided and discussed in summary with students in class and used to complement the SET report for promotion and tenure.

 

Classroom Critical Incident Questionnaire*

Please take a few minutes to respond to each of the questions below about the class over the past seven weeks. Please do not place your name on the form; your responses should remain anonymous. At the end of class, please place the completed form on the chair by the door. After reviewing your feedback, I will share a summary of the responses received. Thanks for taking the time to do this. What you write will help me make the class more responsive to your concerns.

 

At what moment in class (i.e., any week) did you feel most engaged with what was happening?

 

 

 

At what moment in class (i.e., any week) did you feel most distanced from what was happening?

 

 

 

 

What action that anyone (instructor or student) took in class did you find most affirming or helpful?

 

 

 

 

 

What action that anyone (instructor or student) took in class did you find most puzzling or confusing?

 

 

 

 

 

What about the class has surprised you the most? (This could be something about your own reactions to what went on, or something that someone did, or anything else that occurs to you).

 

 

 

 

*Adapted from Brookfield S. The Classroom Critical Incident Questionnaire. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5738a0ccd51cd47f81977fe8/t/5750e567f699bbceac6e97f5/1464919400130/CIQ.pdf. Accessed April 8, 2017.