Drake Institute Instructional Consultants enjoy working with Ohio State’s exceptional instructional staff to explore ideas, questions, situations, and opportunities through a client-focused consultation service designed and intended for all who teach at Ohio State. Our dedicated team of consultants offer supportive, comfortable, and confidential spaces to engage in discussions of teaching. Both in-person and virtual consultations are available to help you achieve your personal teaching goals, develop new ideas and approaches, and navigate your personal teaching challenges and contexts.
Consultation is a great fit for any instructor, whether you are looking to explore a specific topic, seeking advice on a question or teaching challenge, or simply looking for a safe space to discuss your teaching practice. Consider the selection of common consultation topics listed below, including:
- Getting started with university teaching
- Writing or reimagining course learning goals and outcomes
- Designing assignments
- Implementing active learning effectively
- Trying out a cutting-edge teaching practice
- Collecting and using feedback on teaching
- Crafting a teaching statement or portfolio
Whether you are just getting started or honing your craft, we are looking forward to meeting you!
Want to schedule a teaching consultation?
Please contact us with a short description of the context behind your request and we’ll get back with you shortly!
What to Expect
After you submit your request, it will be forwarded to the consultant who is the best fit for your situation. They will reach out to schedule an initial conversation, either in-person or virtual.”
During your initial meeting, we will begin by asking questions about you, your teaching, and your students to better understand your unique situation and how we can support you. Our staff use this scholarly approach to consultation to tailor our response to you.
In some cases, a singular consultation may be all that you need. However, in many cases, we will use the first consultation as a time to plan further engagements. Before meeting again, we may provide you with evidence-based strategies and resources, review your course materials, or plan another way to collect data that is relevant to your request. Examples of ways we might gather feedback include the following:
In-class focus groups (i.e., "SGIDs")
To gather information directly from students in a format that permits interaction, we offer focus-group-style visits to your classroom, which allow us to talk with your students about their learning, ask follow-up questions where needed to understand their experience, and clarify their feedback. This service entails a three-step process, which involves the following:
- An initial meeting with you to discuss your course and interest in collecting student feedback.
- Setting aside 20-25 minutes of class time to allow a consultant to gather written feedback and talk with students while the instructor is not present.
- As a follow-up to the feedback session, your consultant will schedule a meeting with you to discuss the feedback that was generated and to create a plan for revisiting it with your students.
In the literature, this process is called a Small Group Instructional Diagnosis, or "SGID" (Lenze, 2012). Instructors who choose this method do so to facilitate data-driven enhancements to student learning (Diamond, 2004).
Your consultant will work with you to identify and schedule a convenient time for your student feedback session to be held.
Teaching online? We will work in consultation with you to identify an alternative approach to the standard SGID process that can provide the benefits of collecting and responding to mid-course feedback on instruction without the specific need for an in-person, focus-group style engagement. See, “Midterm or End-of-Course Surveys” below for more information.
Observations of Instruction
In some cases, an observation of instruction may be recommended to collect further information about your teaching. As an example, instructors often have questions about how to refine their implementation of active learning. Observing an instructor’s current use of active learning helps us personalize guidance and improve our recommendations for improvement. During our initial consultation, we will work together to decide whether an observation is right for you.
Midterm or End-of-course Surveys
Our instructional consultant team is available to help you construct midterm or end-of-course instruments that can be tailored to course outcomes or to specific data/feedback interests or needs. Once an instrument has been constructed and administered, consultants can also assist you with interpretation of responses to both custom-designed instruments and standard surveys such as the SEI.
Following the initial consultation and/or feedback collection engagement, your instructional consultant will work with you to determine if any additional engagements, resources, or supports are needed.
We look forward to working with you to answer your questions and improve your teaching!
Want to schedule a teaching consultation?
Please contact us with a short description of the context behind your request and we’ll get back with you shortly!
References:
Diamond, M.R. (2004). The usefulness of structured mid-term feedback as a catalyst for change in higher education classes. Active Learning in Higher Education, 5(3), 311-323.
Lenze, L.F. (2012). Small Group Instructional Diagnosis (SGID). In K. T. Brinko (Ed.), Practically speaking: A sourcebook for instructional consultants in higher education (pp. 46-52). Stillwater, OK: New Forums Press, Inc.