Small-Group Instructional Diagnosis

Small-group Instructional Diagnosis uses an outside facilitator to elicit students’ feedback. It is usually conducted at midterm so changes can be made during the second half of the course. The purpose is to give instructors reasonable suggestions for improving their courses. The process takes about 20-30 minutes in class and has four steps.

How Small-Group Instructional Diagnosis can be pivotal:

From 2014 through 2021, I collaborated with the ECTL to perform Small Group Instructional Diagnoses for my Microbiology Capstone Course. This course is a problem-based and community-engaged course in which students address real problems presented by their stakeholders. They write an NSF-style individual and team grant proposing hypotheses and field, computational and lab-based research methods to test their hypotheses. They then execute the research and present their findings to the community partners and subject-matter experts. I built this course from the ground up using Merrill’s First Principles of Instructional Design. Thus, I wanted to be sure that I was regularly checking in with the students, asking them what is unique about the course, what their concerns are, what are the successes and areas for improvement. Themes from many years of SGIDs relate that students find the opportunity to cultivate science skills (teamwork and science communication), and the opportunity to do authentic community-based problem-solving to be unique. Early in the semester, they worry about time

management, breadth of projects/literature, and the fear of missing skill sets. At the semester’s end, students express that they want more: more time (discussed in 19 SGIDs), more credit (discussed in 6 SGIDs) and more semesters (discussed in 3 SGIDs).

These data from SGIDs, coupled with plentiful additional course assessment data, allowed me to publish about the course in 2018 in the Interdisciplinary Journal of Problem-based Learning and more recent findings were presented at the Original Lilly Conference on College Teaching.

Rachel Watson

Director of the Science Initiative Learning Actively Mentoring Program (LAMP)

Senior Lecturer / Microbiology, Biochemistry, Health and Environmental Science Instructor

Co-Coach of the Men's and Women's Nordic Ski Team and cl-lead of the International Nordic Ski Training Program

Division of Kinesiology and Health

Director o the Queer Studies Minor Program (Department of Gender and Women's Studies)

The Diagnosis Process:

The instructor arranges a date for the evaluation.
on the day of the evaluation, the instructor introduces the facilitator as someone who is there at his, her, or their request to elicit feedback about the course. The instructor then leaves the room. After a brief overview of the process, the facilitator asks students to divide into small groups. The groups have approximately seven minutes to complete a one-page evaluation sheet containing three questions: What do you like about this course? What do you think needs improvement? What specific suggestions do you have for changing this course? Each group can list as many or as few responses as it desires to each of the three questions; however, the comments recorded on the evaluation sheet must be arrived at by group consensus. The spokespeople from each group report back by writing their responses on the board or screen in three columns: LIKES, NEEDS IMPROVEMENT, and SUGGESTIONS. The facilitator checks for consensus of the whole class, and responses are either eliminated or rewritten. The second half of this step takes another ten minutes.
Several days after the classroom visit, the instructor receives a written summary of the class responses. The instructor may request a follow-up visit with the facilitator.
To close the loop, it is important for the instructor to discuss with the class what can or can’t be changed.

To request a consultation, please fill out our Consultation Request Form. PLEASE NOTE: It may take at least two weeks to schedule a consultation.

For more information, please email us at ellbogenctl@uwyo.edu or call us at (307) 766-4847.

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Ellbogen Center for Teaching and Learning

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Phone: (307)766-4817

Email: ellbogenctl@uwyo.edu