Presentation Software: Flashlight™ Question Inventory
Revised December 16, 2004
This inventory of
questions is designed to help you
draft a brief survey that is tailored to your needs. We expect that you will select relatively few
of these questions, that you will rewrite at least some of them, and that you
may well add questions of your own that focus on what you need to know. If your institution is a TLT/Flashlight
subscriber at the Comprehensive or Network levels, you can use the Flashlight
Online system which already has all of the questions below pre-stored in a
survey that you can quickly modify and administer in your courses. Click here for instructions on how to use
Flashlight Online to create your survey in minutes!
Most of these questions are
framed in a positive way (e.g., Agree/disagree: "The total amount of text
is satisfactory") but you may find you get more pointed, useful feedback
if you signal to students that criticism is welcome by using or devising
questions about potential problems (e.g., Agree/disagree: " There is so
much text on the slides that it is hard to read them.")
How to use these
questions, and create your own: Here,
in outline, is what an instructor might do to use these questions,
and others that he or she might invent, to improve presentations:
a) Consider your own presentation, and your approach to
presentation. What might work especially well or poorly in your presentations for at
least a few students (For example, print is too small; the images really helped
me visualize what you were talking about; the presentation went so fast I
couldn’t keep up with what you were saying)
b) Of those possibilities, eliminate that those you can't
or wouldn't change, no matter what the learners say
c) Turn the most important of the surviving
possibilities into questions for your survey (feedback form). There are lots of
guidelines for writing good survey questions. Here are several of the most
important:
Use relatively
unambiguous language
Ask only one
question at a time. (Example of asking several questions at a time: “When my
lectures go too slowly for you, is it because I’m repeating what was in the
reading?” (Question 1: did my lectures
go too slowly? Question 2: did you do
the reading; Question 3. was there a relation between
what you learned from the reading and how you experienced my lectures?)
The question
shouldn’t suggest the answer you want.
Only ask
questions where you know that, no matter what people say, you can use their
answers.
d) Ask the learners your questions
e) Act on what they tell you – some of their answers may
influence you to change something about your presentations; others may convince
you to keep doing what you’re doing.
f)
Tell them what
you've done as a result of their advice (which should help convince them to
respond even more thoughtfully the next time you ask for feedback)
g) If, in the process, you discover something of general
interest (e.g., the tool you've used really works; insight from the data),
share with other instructors ("scholarship of teaching")
.
Rights to use and modify
these materials: Copyright to this
document belongs to the TLT Group (2001, 2004).
If your institution or project has a TLT Group subscription (click
here to see a list of subscribing institutions), we grant you
permission to modify it as you like and to create your own link to this site.
If your Web site has password protection so it is only accessible to members of
your community, you can post a copy there, but don’t forget to check back here
– we may update this material from time to time. We do NOT grant permission for you to publish
these questions (copy them to a publicly accessible Web site or print any or
all of them in a book, for example).
The page was created using
Microsoft Word™. You can use the "save as" command to save it to your
own machine, edit it (deleting the questions you don't want to use, rewriting
others, adding your own), and use it.
<Teaching Ideas Introduction Sample Survey>
Key
Questions in black text are appropriate for general use
Questions
in green text are modifiable for specific use.
Questions
in maroon are versions of questions in the current Flashlight
Presentation Software: Flashlight™ Question
Inventory
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Section I: Functional Use |
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Text & Clarity
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Please indicate how
strongly you agree or disagree with each of the following statements. 1=(strongly disagree) to 5= (strongly agree); or no basis for opinion. |
SD |
D |
Neither Agree or Disagree |
A |
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No basis for Opinion |
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The total amount of text on a slide is satisfactory |
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There is so much text on the slides that it is hard to read them. |
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Long passages of text (3 lines or more) on the slides are easy to read |
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Slide headings help in note taking |
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Headings are clearer when they are accompanied by images |
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Headings used alone are understandable |
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Slide headings are clearly related to slide content |
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The text on the screen is large enough to read |
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Slide headings and text are sufficient for understanding |
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Images, Motion & Animations |
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The images on the screen are clear and identifiable |
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Because you use images to illustrate steps of a process, I understand these processes better |
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Because you use figures from the text in your slides it is easier for me to reference and review material later |
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I would understand the lecture better if you showed additional images relevant to course content |
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Images add interest to the material |
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Images help me understand concepts |
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The images you used to illustrate [x} were confusing |
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Images help me focus my attention |
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The use of animations helps me understand complex processes in particular |
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Motion helps me understand concepts |
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Motion adds interest to the material |
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Motion helps to focus my attention |
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The use of motion is confusing |
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Speed |
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The pace of slides holds my interest |
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You spend an appropriate amount of time talking about the content of each slide |
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The pace allows me to take complete notes |
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The slides often advance too quickly. |
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Lighting |
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The lighting in the classroom is bright enough to keep me awake |
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The lighting in the classroom is bright enough for note taking |
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The lighting in the classroom is so bright that I have trouble seeing the slides clearly from where I sit |
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Sound |
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The use of sound with the slides provided a useful demonstrations of what I might encounter in actual situations |
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Audio narrations for the slides made it easier for me to review. |
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Because I could use the Web to see the slides and hear the lecture, I rarely needed to come to class.
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Once or twice I had to miss class but my grades didn't suffer because I could use the Web to see the slides and hear the lecture. |
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Section II: Course Experience |
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Class Presentations |
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Please indicate how
strongly you agree or disagree with each of the following statements. 1=(strongly disagree) to 5=
(strongly agree); or no basis for opinion. |
SD |
D |
Neither Agree or Disagree |
A |
SA |
No basis for Opinion |
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Presentations cover course material in useful and sufficient detail |
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Slide content helps me to ask relevant questions |
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The order of slides usually relates to what students say or ask |
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Because you feel the need to do slides in order, you sometimes don't respond to what we need in class. |
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The way you use PowerPoint in class helps with class discussion |
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Summarizing and projecting what students say during class discussions using PowerPoint provides me with a useful study notes from the event |
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Because you used slides to illustrate steps of a process, I understand these processes better |
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Presentations on [grammar] help me to understand [correctness matters] |
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The slides on {x} confused me
about {y}. |
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PowerPoint is appropriate for a class as small as ours. |
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Please say more about the use of PowerPoint in small class sections (25 students or less). |
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PowerPoint is appropriate for large lecture sections |
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Please say more about the use of PowerPoint for big course sections (75 students). |
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