Instructor evaluation Tool. The below evaluation tool is used to evaluate instructors presentation skills. These are areas we typically look at during an instructor evaluation at the community college level.
RECOMMENDED ADDTIONAL READINGS
The following list of books are in my personal library and are highly recommended for anyone wishing to teach college or become a trainer. These are not affiliate links and I do not receive any commission for recommending their publications.
- Allen, M. (2004) Assessing Academic Programs in Higher Education. Anker Publishing San Francisco, Ca. Techniques for assessing at the program level.
- Allen, M. (2006) Assessing General Education Programs. Anker Publishing, San Francisco. Techniques for assessing at the program level.
- Angelo, T. & Cross, P. (1993) Classroom Assessment Techniques: A Handbook for College Teachers. Second Edition, Jossey-Bass Publishing San Francisco, Ca. Excellent book on assessment techniques that can be applied to training.
- Brown, P. Roediger, H. McDaniel, M. (2014) Make it Stick. Harvard University Press. Cambridge, Massachusetts. Excellent book on how educators and trainers can make learning stick into long-term memory.
- Duarte, N. (2008). Slide:Ology: The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations. O’Reilly Media. Sebastopol, California. Describes in great detail how instructors/presenters can improve PowerPoint presentations and think like a designer.
- Fink, D. (2003) Creating Significant Learning Experiences: An Integrated Approach to Designing College Courses. Jossey-Bass Publishing San Francisco, Ca. An overview of how to design courses.
- Reynolds, G. (2012). Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery. New Riders, California. Excellent book on presentation design and delivery.
- Lucas, R. (2000) The Big Book of Flip Charts. McGraw Hill, New York. Comprehensive book on the many uses and how to use flip charts in presentations.
- Fraser, D. (2022) Kickass Presentations; Wow Audiences with PowerPoint Slides that click, Humor that’s Quick, and Messages that Stick. Spirit Bear Books. A comprehensive guide to presentations.
ASSESSMENT TECHNIQUES
I have used the following techniques in college classes and some law enforcement training with successful results.
Kahoot is a free game-based learning platform used in classrooms across the United States to engage students and assess learning. It can also be used in law enforcement training. For example, an instructor just finished showing a video of a police shooting and asked the audience “Was the shooting justified? The instructor is going to poll the class to assess what their attitudes and feelings are based on the video they just watched. The instructor projects the polling question on the projector screen, asks the students to use their smartphones to pull up the Kahoot app, and enter a code to participate. As students begin to vote, their usernames are displayed on the screen for everyone to see, some can be very funny. After the allotted time is up, the instructor pulls up the vote tally and shows it to the class for discussion.
The Immediate Feedback Assessment Technique involves the use of scratch off cards where students individually or in groups, take a quiz and know immediately what the results are. I have used this technique mostly for small group work and feedback from students indicated it helped them retain the information longer.
The One-Minute Paper is a quick way to assess the class at any one time what they are understanding and what they are having trouble with. Here is an example: At the end of a block of instruction, the instructor asks students to take out a short piece of paper and answer two questions: what was the most important topic they learned and what are they still not clear about. Responses should be anonymous and the instructor can quickly go through them at the next break to see how the students are learning the material.
The Muddiest Paper is a variation of the above which just asks the one question: what is still not clear to you?
Start, Stop, Continue is an assessment technique where the instructor asks the class halfway through the course, “what should we start doing to help you learn the material, what should we stop doing that is not helping you, and what should we continue doing that is helping you learn the material.”
Midcourse Evaluation Tool. Halfway through the class, the instructor asks the students four questions on how the class is going and what can be improved. A variation of the Start, Stop, Continue assessment technique.
Low Tech Student Response Card. With this tool, each student has the letters A,B,C,D in their possession. At anytime during the class, the instructor poses a question to the group with four possible answers. Students merely raise their letter choice to answer the question. This gives the instructor a quick look as to how the students are understanding the material.
This is the same Student Response Card as above only this file you can download to your smartphone.
The following templates can be used to illustrate or assess dope classes in the symptoms of drug influence. Simply take the template drawing and convert it to a overhead transparency. Take that transparency and project that onto a flipchart using an overhead projector. Draw the image using a Sharpe. Then hand the drawing to students and ask them to indicate and draw the symptoms of drug influence directly onto the image.
HOW TO BE A COLLEGE INSTRUCTOR/PROFESSOR
The Association of College and University Educators (ACUE) offers courses in effective higher education teaching. Basically how to teach college and university classes. By far, the best training I have ever received in teaching at institutions of higher learning. When I was working at California State University, Los Angeles as a partime instructor, I was fortunate the department sponsored my enrollment in one of their online certificate programs.
The Art of Teaching by the Great Courses is a video lecture series for anyone teaching high school or college classes. Part of my library.
Kelly William Enos 
