Interacting with Students

Each day you will interact with dozens of students outside of your teaching role. These numerous interactions may include informal break time conversations, academic advising during office hours or more formal appeal meetings. These are primarily private conversations with individual students and are rarely in the presence of other faculty. However, this means that you seldom receive any feedback on how you perform in these roles. Who better to provide valuable feedback in this area than a fellow faculty member? Peer-to-peer feedback is a useful activity to help you reflect on your interactions with students outside of the classroom. Ideally, this process could be reciprocated with both participants providing feedback to each other.

Identifying and asking a colleague to join you in this process is a key step. Consider the other person’s experience, style of interacting with students and strengths. There is value in selecting someone who you perceive to have a similar style to you. However, do not ignore the potential value of selecting someone who you feel may have a different teaching style. These individuals may be able to offer unique and thought-provoking insights that can take your teaching practice to the next level. It is important to also respect the privacy of the students and seek permission or ensure that identifying information is excluded from written work you may share.

Prior to approaching a fellow faculty member to join you in this activity, consider the various facets of your position. In terms of student interaction, which activities would you most value having another faculty sit in with you to observe and provide feedback? Here are some examples to consider:

• Course level academic advising
• Student appeal meetings
• Class break-time conversations
• Meeting to discuss a breach of academic integrity with a student.

You could also consider asking a fellow faculty member to provide feedback on your written communication to students or stakeholders. Examples might include:

• Email communications (e.g., in response to a student concern)
• Feedback on assignments
• Assignment descriptions
• Course handouts
• Article for publication
• Proposal for research or conference presentation
• Research or funding proposal
• Open Educational Resource (OER) you have created.