One of the great things about teaching in the Guanajuato Summer Law Institute is the opportunity to meet professors from our partner law schools. At our mid-day comida today, Professor Jorge Ramirez from Texas Tech talked about his approach to providing interim feedback in his International Business and International Law courses. During the semester he gives the students problems that he asks them to work on in groups of two or three. The problems are designed to cover the material fairly comprehensively. Each of the groups is assigned a different problem and they are required to provide a written analysis of the problem to Professor Ramirez. Then, he reviews the students’ written responses to the problems and then MEETS with each small group to give them feedback on their first draft. They are asked to take his feedback and rewrite the answer to the problem. Professor Ramirez then shares the re-writes with the whole class. Professor Ramirez thus provides formative feedback that the students take very seriously since they know that their work will be shared with their colleagues. He has the opportunity to assess the students learning and make adjustments during the semester to ensure that the students grasp the material and can discuss and analyze the problems effectively. What a neat idea!
Filed under: Best Practices, Outcomes & Assessment Techniques, Teaching Methodology, Who is Using the Best Practices Book?
