How about a Start, Stop, Continue Retrospective?

By Geneviève Maheux-Pelletier, Interim Director of the Teaching Commons

September is always an exciting and challenging time. Exciting because it brings renewal to our academic lives and challenging, well, for the same reason. New courses, new students, new initiatives, new committees, and the busyness of it all often means that we carry through with little time to take our breath and reflect. 

Now that September is almost gone, classroom routine is established and things are becoming a bit easier. It might be a good time to check-in with students and ask how they find their classroom experience so far. Inviting their feedback can be done in a myriad of ways, but the Start, Stop, Continue technique is one simple yet effective strategy instructors can use to encourage students to reflect back on their learning trajectory so far while and at the same time gather great insights from students to guide the rest of the semester. This is most effective about halfway through a semester - there is enough time spent together to reflect back, and plenty of time ahead to implement changes. Below are some prompts to encourage personal reflection about one’s learning as well as questions to solicit feedback on what the instructor can change or continue to do.

Start

Student reflection: What have you not done so far in class that you can start doing to help better integrate course materials? 

Feedback to instructor: What can I start doing in the classroom to help you better learn?

Stop

Student reflection: Looking back, is there something you do that inhibits your learning that you want to stop doing?

Feedback to instructor: Is there something happening in class that you wish would stop? This could be something I or your classmates do you find unhelpful.

Continue

Student reflection: What is working for you so far that you wish to continue doing?

Feedback to instructor: What’s happening in class that you wish for me to continue doing?

This activity should take no more than five minutes of class time. Once everyone is done, the instructor collects the anonymous responses. This feedback will provide valuable insights about the instructor’s teaching techniques but also into a particular group of students. After Reading Week, the instructor can revisit the feedback in class and have a discussion with the group on what may be possible to implement and why (or why not). This retrospective will help the instructor gain valuable insights on their delivery methods while communicating to students that their suggestions are valued and taken into account. For this reason, it is good practice, if and when feedback is requested from students, to let them know that the changes and new strategies  being implemented have been inspired by their insights.

So, what will you start, stop, and continue doing in your teaching to support their learning?

About the Author

Geneviève is a seasoned educator with a comprehensive understanding of university culture, having played multiple roles within academia over the last 15 years - as a professor, an undergraduate program director, contract faculty, a scholar-researcher of teaching and learning, and most recently as an educational developer. Currently, she serves as interim director of the Teaching Commons at York University. Her research interests focus on the notion of reflective learning and evidence-based educational development practices. She serves on the editorial board of the Canadian Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (CJSoTL) and sits on the Board of Directors for the Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education.