Today’s guest post is by Dr. Jelena Magliaro, Secretary to the Director, Inter-Faculty Programs.

Why is it so important to provide meaningful feedback and reflect on our own plan of study?

(i) supporting families and children, (ii) encouraging philanthropy and volunteerism, and (iii) reinforcing learning and innovation.

 

In a recent interview with University Affairs (November 2011), our Governor General David Johnston proposed three pillars:

  1. supporting families and children,
  2. encouraging philanthropy and volunteerism, and
  3. reinforcing learning and innovation.

Although, we can all contribute to all of these three pillars, as GA/TAs we can ask ourselves as current and future educators how can we contribute towards reinforcing learning and innovation?

Contributing towards reinforcing learning and innovation could be approached many by ways but I will emphasise the possible two points:

  1. providing effective feedback to students as a key to reinforcing learning while
  2. creating and reflecting on your own plan of study as a key towards innovation.

(i) providing effective feedback to students as a key to reinforcing learning while (ii) creating and reflecting on your own plan of study as a key towards innovation.

Effective Feedback Tips (Piccinin, 2003) is a two way road. You want to provide feedback to students but you also want to obtain feedback from students too:

  • Encourage the solicitation of feedback by creating non-threating climate. Do not wait till the last class to ask students how they feel about the course. E.g. somewhere mid way through the course, with a few minutes remaining in the class present students with the anonymous One Minute Paper.  Short questions such as: “ What it the most useful …?” “ What recommendations you have ….” could be submitted as students leave the room.
  •  Provide specific direction for improvement. In order for students to improve their work, they need to know what they have done well and what they have not done well. Explain to students what was good about their work and what exactly they need to clarify further. E.g. if the original sources are quoted extensively, make suggestion such as “ to paraphrase the quotations, explain their significance, or to reword the section to connect to ….”

Plan of Study – Completing your Thesis/Dissertation as Key to Innovation

  • Are you finding articles and/or reading  about your graduate thesis topic? How are you organizing your literature review? RefWorks can be a very useful tool when it comes to sorting out literature (e.g American vs Canadian; North American vs European). If you are unsure how to accomplish this, talk to your academic librarian.
  • Do you have any short term plans for this semester? What will you accomplish each month? When will you be done your thesis/dissertation first draft? Here is a sample template for each semester.

Plan of Study for Winter 2011

chart to visualize plan for each month, goal, and meeting with advisors

Being a GA/TA provides us with an opportunity to reinforce student learning, and as graduate students we also can become innovators – as a first step we can start contributing by completing ones thesis/ dissertations. Enjoy the educational journey!

 

 

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