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Exchanges:The Online Journal of Teaching and Learning in the CSU http://www.exchangesjournal.org Katherine L. AdamsCalifornia State University, Fresno The Critical Incident Questionnaire: A Critical Reflective Teaching ToolPosted October 17, 2001 |
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The Critical Incident Questionnaire (CIQ), developed by Stephen Brookfield (1995), is one of many tools available to teachers across the disciplines who proactively incorporate formative assessment into their courses. CIQs are comprised of five open-ended questions that ask learners about the most engaging and distancing moments, the most affirming and confusing actions, and the most surprising moments in the classroom. Teachers can use CIQs to provide repeated, anonymous opportunities for learners to reflect on these regular learnings or "critical incidents" (Brookfield, 1995). In this report I will discuss the pedagogical perspective served by the CIQ, the basic philosophy behind its useits characteristics, and its benefits. My comments about this tool are based on my own experiences with it in two Spring 2000 public communication courses taught in the California State University, Fresno Smittcamp Honors College and on my understanding of its use by Stephen Brookfield (1995). Interactive PedagogyFeminists and others with liberatory and interactive pedagogic goals have written extensively about why and how their efforts in the classroom run counter to traditional pedagogies centered around Socratic dialogue (Mahr & Tetreault, 1994). The Socratic "expert" (i.e., the teacher) educated by the best in her or his respective discipline enters the static classroom context in order to dispense or transmit a given body of knowledge to the awaiting "nonexpert" (i.e., the learner). Socratic dialogue is used to "pull" from the apprentice the "correct" answers to problems posed in a series of questions. "To learn" means to understand the given body of knowledge in the language approved by the respective discipline. Liberatory pedagogies break with traditional pedagogies by altering the relationship between learner and teacher and taking an ontologically different position on the nature of knowledge (Mahr & Tetreault, 1994). Learning partially emerges from learner questions, insight, and experience. Learner letters, diaries, journals, portfolios, and CIQs are used to encourage learners to participate in the ongoing discursive construction of knowledge and thus to take an active role in creating an education relevant to their lives. Certainly liberatory and interactive pedagogies are not the exclusive domain of feminist educators. I wish instead to place the CIQ's use within the wider rubric of less traditional pedagogies grounded in the central philosophy that "we cannot judge what people are learning until we truly understand who the students are and the experiences they bring to learning and the classroom" (emphasis mine) (Rice, 1996, p. 11). "Critically reflective" teaching embodies such a philosophy in its goals to recognize the learner's active role in learning and to remind us that the strongest warrant for any pedagogical choice is grounded in understanding learner experiences. Critically Reflective TeachingStephen Brookfield (1995), in his book Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher, details why it is so vital to understand "who" the learner is and how to use tools like the CIQ toward that end (see especially Chapters 5 and 6). Critically reflective teaching entails actively, continuously probing "inside" the learner's experience and using ethnographic tools like the CIQ to catch intriguing, informative, and sometimes frightening glimpses into the myriad ways learners make sense of the "same" classroom experiences. "Getting inside students' heads," Brookfield claims, is one of the trickiest and most crucial tasks if we are to discover how they make sense of our behavior in order to achieve desired outcomes. For teachers facing learners who act disengaged and hostile, who are ill prepared, and who show little or no insight into their own ways of knowing, critically reflective teaching practices offer valuable ways to gain access to the diverse ways of knowing and to capture the ongoing, slippery nature of each class experience. The Critical Incident QuestionnaireBrookfield (1995) contends that teaching can be rendered meaningless or at the very least misguided if applied without the "foundational, first order knowledge we need to do good work as teachers" (p. 94). CIQ data can help lay open "hidden agendas, power centers, and assumptions that inhibit, repress, and constrain" and can help us challenge assumptions that permeate our classrooms (Thomas, 1993, pp. 2-3). Regular teacher solicitation of vivid learnings produces a "running commentary" on the emotional climate of a class as opposed to end-of-the-term learner ratings of instruction which are after the fact and do not provide a window into the routine dynamics, tenor, or rhythm of learner experience (Brookfield, 1995). Integrating the CIQ into the ClassroomCampus bookstores and other copy centers can copy the CIQ's instructions and five questions onto a single page attached to a tear-off carbon copy (Brookfield, 1995, see Appendix A). The questions can be altered to fit the needs of any classroom. I distributed the CIQ during the final ten minutes of the last weekly class period, instructing students to keep the carbon copies and leave the originals in a box by the door as they left class. When I could remain separate from the students completing the CIQ forms I was better able to protect learner privacy and to reinforce the students' anonymity. The effectiveness of the CIQ is partly a function of their routine use in a course. Weekly use does take time and I found myself using them periodically given the nature of course activities, so the important point is their routine use. How did I do this? First, I explained them in my course syllabi and used quotes about their usefulness from past learners. Second, I talked about the CIQ and its purpose during the first week of class and used examples from past courses. Third, I discussed the CIQs' weekly themes in succeeding weeks and integrated their content into the course. Fourth, I found that CIQs used in conjunction with journals and portfolios required the learners to reflect on CIQ information, which helps to legitimize their use. I urge you not to assume that learners initially will understand why and how the CIQs are integral to your teaching and their learning. In fact, I found that some resisted filling out the CIQs and were never convinced of their value. Also, not all learners will remember what to report at the end of the week and may even express frustration while completing the forms. I suggest that teachers consciously summarize course activities and topics during the week and again before the CIQ is handed out. I also reassured students that if they do not have a response for a question it is okay to leave a blank. CIQ AnalysisCollected CIQs are read for their themes. A word of caution: This kind of weekly feedback is exciting, surprising, and sometimes painful. Use of the CIQ is not for the thin-skinned. How many of us teach behind a glass wall, rarely creating the opportunity to ask routinely for this sort of feedback? We leave class with all sorts of perceptions about how "it" went. I often ask myself after a particularly great class, "For whom was it 'great'?" Reading 50 CIQs a week is an often-startling reminder to me that the "same" class is not phenomenologically the "same" for all participants. "Effective exercise?" Maybe. "Disastrous lecture?" Maybe. "They are just not with it today." Maybe. All sorts of "surprises" await teachers who are willing to expose themselves to routine learner feedback and to the reasons that learners experienced the class in the manner they did. The task is to translate the comments into themes without looking for whether I was liked or not (Brookfield, 1995). I looked for anything that helped me, within reason, constructively alter the course. If there was a problem, and especially one I caused, then I addressed it. For example, I discovered that "remedial" discussions of effective test-taking, study habits, and note taking "distanced" most learners in honors' classes yet they were appreciated by a few who did not want to admit it publicly for fear of being ridiculed by others. This discovery facilitated a discussion about what learners think they know and led to an alteration of my course content to fit the needs of this learner population. I found it challenging to write summaries of the CIQs (see Appendix B). I took care to remain as true as I could to the spirit of the students' responses and I avoided "boring" lists of responses for each question. I worked hard to avoid the temptation to refute every response that I took as a reproach to something I did or said in class. I have found that rebuttals in the CIQ summaries run the risk of silencing learners. Instead, debriefing discussions during class with the learners is more constructive. I set aside time at the start of the week to debrief learners on the themes that emerged in their CIQs from the previous week (Brookfield, 1995). These summaries can be either oral or written. I provided written summaries so learners could read them on their own time and have them for their learning journals and portfolios. I discussed any course changes I made as a result of studying the CIQs. Constructive discussion and even debate with learners evidenced my willingness to adapt course content and pedagogy. The idea here is not to change the course at every learner's whim, but to discuss and negotiate when appropriate. I also tried to focus on the positive themes during the debriefings. Benefits of the CIQI have alluded to some of the benefits of the CIQ. Here I will explicitly summarize them using, for this report, the five benefits highlighted by Stephen Brookfield (1995).
Nothing can be more frustrating to me than to feel like I am continually dealing with course crises retroactively or learning at the end of the course that learners had major issues with the course but did not bother to tell me. The CIQ provides a regular avenue for learners to express how they are experiencing the classroom without directly requiring public feedback. For example, I learned that previously successful course activities may not be successful with honors' learners. These learners were particularly resentful of activities they perceived as "childish" or too elementary. I have dropped some of these activities and I have changed how I present others. One such activity turned out to be a rousing success and I learned why they liked the activity (e.g., it was fun, it broke with routine class formats, it really showed the different forms of organization, etc.).
How many of us take the time to give learners the opportunity to really explore how they change as learners and human beings over the term of a course? The CIQ provides an opportunity for teacher and learner reflection. I found with my routine use of the CIQ, journals, and portfolios, that most learners, even those resistant to the end, report important insights into themselves both personally and intellectually. Some reported that they had no clue that others in the class thought the way they did about class practices. I was also struck by how the simple recognition of differences in experiences allowed students to ease the pressure on themselves to "be like everyone else."
Often I find that my rationalization of pedagogical and curricular choices falls on deaf ears. Providing summaries of CIQs or bringing information from them back into the discourse of the class is an effective way to legitimize those diverse practices. The CIQ is hands-on evidence to learners that reality warrants different teaching and learning strategies.
Routine use of the CIQ is one of several ways I have of building trust in the classroom by legitimizing learners' private concerns when making them public in a constructive, caring manner. The more I can demonstrate the philosophy of collaborative learning, the more I increase the probability of successful teaching and learning.
I will admit that more often than not I would just as soon not know what the learner is thinking and feeling about classroom practices on a weekly basis--my own story is much safer and I am certainly too often over-inflated. Teaching 50 honors learners provided me with some of my most challenging moments in 21 years of teaching. I learned how hard it is for me to fight emotional blackmail regarding grading, how lonely it can be to hold different opinions about class content and issues when groups of learners live in their own communities, and how, after all this time and recognized excellence in teaching, I still deeply question my ability to teach and worry far too much about what learners think of me. I also learned how to be better partners with them, learning that many will resist nontraditional teaching methods but that with time most will come around. I learned about the kind of hands-on examples they need to succeed in class assignments. I learned once again that class group activities need to be closely monitored in an effort to encourage everyone to participate. I learned that some students actually prefer lectures not just because of the content but because they enjoy seeing how someone else presents material. Mostly, I learned not to take anything for granted. To do good work as teachers, our classroom practices should be based on informed choices and the effort is well worth it. References Brookfield, S. (1995). Becoming a critically reflective teacher. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Maher, F. A., & Tetreault, M. K. (1994). The feminist classroom. New York: Basic Books. Rice, S. (1996, Winter). Review of The feminist classroom [Review of the book The feminist classroom]. Exchanges, 7(1) California State University System Institute for Teaching and Learning, 11-14. Thomas, J. (1993). Doing critical ethnography. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. All material appearing in this journal is subject to applicable copyright laws. Publication in this journal in no way indicates the endorsement of the content by the California State University, the Institute for Teaching and Learning, or the Exchanges Editorial Board. ©2001 by Katherine L. Adams. |
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