How to gather student feedback by applying Rosenshine’s principles

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Getting feedback from your students during the term can be a good way to find out how things are going and to see if they understand the main messages/topics. It may also give students a chance to express their feelings or ask for clarifications, and it allows you to ultimately decide whether or not to change your teaching approach.

Here we propose 3 learning techniques to support you in the application of Rosenshine’s Principles of Education in the classroom when gathering student feedback.

This previous blog post provides a brief introduction to Rosenshine’s Principles.

1) Formative assessment with the spinner

Random questions asked in a playful manner are a perfect way to assess your students formatively. As a variation to assessing students individually, divide your class into pairs, and encourage them to evaluate random questions together.

LessonUp’s digital spinner is the perfect interactive tool to carry out a formative assessment at the end of your lessons. Questions are chosen randomly by the spinner, creating an ‘unpredictable’, yet fun and exciting classroom dynamic.

As a teacher, you can decide which questions you want to spin around. You can write as many different questions as you like. Most students enjoy working with the spinner.

2) SWOT Analysis: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats

There are many ways to evaluate a lesson and reflect on its contents.

This learning technique is frequently used to evaluate a lesson, but from a different point of view. Students are stimulated to analyse their learning strategy with the SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) method. This technique can be used to review, to anticipate, or to prepare for specific assessments.

Learners can implement the SWOT analysis in preparation for any kind of assessment or exam, from formative tests to end of year exams.

Students can answer and discuss the questions in a group setting, but it is probably better to share questions and answers with each student to make them feel special and safe, especially the first time round. Alternatively, and only if you feel comfortable doing so, you could use this learning technique during a standard lesson. Divide your students in pairs, and ask them to help each other while applying it.

It is nice to see that students are very honest in pinpointing their strengths and weaknesses. We have a lot to learn from them…

3) The 60-second post-it

With the 60-second post-it approach, students are encouraged to fill in a digital post-it with the most important things they’ve learned during your lessons. The time limit stimulates students to be selective and cherry pick relevant information. In other words: what sticks the most?

This learning technique is often used at the end of a lesson, while reviewing what has been learned and the learning objective/s. Nevertheless, potentially it could be implemented at any given moment during the learning process. Just as many other types of exit ticket plenaries, it is a very powerful formative assessment tool.

Free white paper

For more information on practical ways to implement all Rosenshine’s Principles during your lessons, download our detailed white paper with 12 learning techniques.

To find out more, please visit LessonUp’s profile on EdTech Impact.