Critical Incident Questions

Contributed by:

Musostudy

Intended Learning Outcome:

To reflect on a learning experience

Tool:

TOOL

The Classroom Critical Incident Questionnaire is from Stephen Brookfield’s Becoming A Critically Reflective Teacher (1995). It asks students 5 questions about a lesson. It is used for students to give anonymous feedback to teachers.

However, we could also use these questions as a reflective tool to help students with their own awareness.

1. At what moment in class this week did you feel most engaged with what was happening?

2. At what moment in class this week did you feel most distanced from what was happening?

3. What action that anyone (teacher or student) took in class this week did you find most affirming or helpful?

4. What action that anyone (teacher or student) took in class this week did you find most puzzling or confusing?

5. What about the class this week surprised you the most?

We can add 3 more questions to this to aid reflection:

6. What connections can you make from the learning in this class to learning in other classes or outside of your course?

7. From these experiences what do you learn about yourself and your learning?

8. What will you change about your studying this week as a result?

Activity:

At the end of a session ask students to consider the questions and jot down short answers.

Students discuss their answers with peers and then feedback into the group on the changes they intend to make to their studying in the following week.

How:

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Examples:

This is a useful activity when students are part of experiential-learning groups – such as in performance classes.

Large Group Teaching:

With large groups, students can feedback in small groups and look for similarities/differences and then feed these back in a plenary session.

Online Teaching:

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Success:

Students make connections with their learning throughout their modules and are more aware of their overall learning trajectory.

Next Steps:

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Links to other activities:

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Acknowledgements:

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Resources:

Critical Incident Questionnaire: http://www.stephenbrookfield.com/ciq7f5/1464919400130/CIQ.pdf