Reflection and Plans

Instructor Feedback and Comments

Below I have provided the GTA evaluation forms from Spring 2020 (completed by Dr. Jane Wegner) and the 2020-2021 academic year (completed by Dr. Matthew Gillispie).

Student Feedback

At the end of each semester, both undergraduate and graduate students had the opportunity to fill out a feedback form for my clinical teaching. With in the form, students were asked to rate the 19 areas in the chart below as not applicable, failed to meet expectations, did not meet expectations, or met expectations. The chart below provides the percentage of students who rated me as "meeting expectations" in the clinical instruction areas. Responses included 14 graduate students and 2 undergraduate students across four semesters.

Additionally, students had the opportunity to provide feedback in an open text box. Below is a sample of the feedback students provided in these sections of the form.

In response to the prompt: Additional comments?

"Susan was available and responded in a timely manner whenever I had questions. She was really good about providing me with the next step to improve without overwhelming me. Her feedback really helped me grow and develop. She made it clear what her expectations were and what was needed of me."

"Susan is great. She provided me with so much information and feedback throughout the semester -both in clinic and simucase. I really struggled with the demands of being in Lawrence everyday and balancing class work, but Susan provided me with so much support and always answered questions. If I ever needed anything, I knew I could ask."

"I thought that Susan was phenomenal as a supervisor! She provided very specific feedback and was receptive to each of our individual learning styles. I really appreciated her patience and adaptability. She was responsive to our needs and supported us in trying new things. I liked the way she organized content and structured materials. I credit my positive experience during a difficult semester to Susan and everything she did to go above and beyond for us as students and clinicians! Obviously things would have been better if our experience were not in a pandemic."

"Susan helped me to feel really comfortable when working with AAC, which was previously an aspect of speech therapy I was not sure I would enjoy and I was very nervous. She helped me to understand prompting hierarchy and how to implement it into my practice. She also provided me a lot of support for interacting with caregivers and helpers which was a weakness for me."

In response to the prompt: What experience during this practicum provided you with the greatest learning opportunity?

"Having access to the AAC lab and working with multiple different AAC devices. It was really tough at first to learn different systems, but Susan helped a ton and provided additional materials to reference to help my sessions go more smoothly. Honestly, just having Susan and Jane as supervisors was great. They always made us think about a topic from many different perspectives. I enjoyed how they both have different experiences and opinions."

"I think the opportunity to structure an assessment with support as necessary was very beneficial. Susan was very good about stepping in when we needed her but not being overbearing, and giving us the chance to try new things. She was really good about balancing feedback to make sure we were growing but also were recognized with positivity, which was really helpful."

Reflections and Plans

Student and Faculty Feedback

In reviewing the feedback forms, I also noted personal growth in some areas. My scores were higher each semester, especially in the area of providing the appropriate amount of support for different levels of clinicians or differing clinical experiences (e.g. AAC evaluations are much more labor intense). After my first semester, the goals set by myself and my supervisor included my ability to scaffold support to meet the individual needs of students. I made an effort in the following semesters to scaffold support for students preparing for AAC evaluations by providing models, meeting with students to explain process of AAC evaluations, and providing additional resources as needed. I was happy to see this reflected in the feedback from students as my scores in this area improved.

When analyzing the data, I was also pleased that the scores related to feedback where all mostly high. The exception was for feedback related to conferences. Upon reflecting on this, I think at the end of the semester, when final conferences with families occur, I could have made more of an effort to provide feedback on the students' interactions with families. I did not have a structured process in place for doing providing feedback on these experiences as I did for assessment and intervention sessions. Developing a worksheet or rubric for final conferences would benefit the students both by providing additional detail of the expected content of conferences and a way to provide feedback. This rubric might also be applied to the ongoing caregiver conversations that occurred more frequently in teletherapy or any therapy setting.

My Feedback to Students

A big reflection related to giving the feedback to students comes from the modality through which I gave feedback. While I appreciated and many students voiced their appreciation to me for a schedule that allowed me to debrief immediately following sessions, I know that as a clinical educator this won't always be possible due to scheduling. In the future, I would like to explore different modalities that might allow for an asynchronous feedback models. This could be done with a video recording or a recording of the session with feedback built in. Students could then review the feedback and submit a reflection form so that they have an opportunity to actively reflect and ask questions. This would allow for me to continue to have a collaborative learning environment through feedback, continue to support the students self-selection of goals, and provide meaningful feedback.

Big Team Meetings

Clinical reflection is an important skill for student clinicians to learn. It allows clinicians to self-evaluate and give feedback. This skill is something that is important for clinicians to continue to implement in their professional careers. The reflection form Dr. Wegner and I developed worked well prior to the pandemic. We provided paper copies of the forms to students and they brought them each week to team meetings. After the closure of campus, students didn't have access to the paper forms any more. The reflection forms were not a priority at that time, and we did not problem solve a way to make them accessible for virtual team meetings (e.g. making them form-fillable). It is unfortunate that I am not sure if the feedback form worked in part due the participatory nature of the group of students with whom we first implemented it or other factors. I would have liked to have seen this form implemented more completely across the remainder of my semesters in this role. In the future, I would like to work through solutions for use of these forms in any setting. When students used them, I could tell their reflections of sessions were more thorough and engaged. One way to do this might be through a form-fillable PDF or through an assignment on Canvas.