A Design Thinking Alternative to Student Evaluations: Using Alumni Feedback to Impact University Course Design

• In Event: 56.081 - Roundtable Session 24
  In Roundtable Session: 56.081-13 - Using Assessment to Improve Learning, Courses, and Student Persistence

Abstract

esign thinking, taught at Stanford's D-School and elsewhere, urges us to think of courses as user experiences and of deeply understanding student needs before designing courses. Yet, feedback beyond student evaluations and faculty interest in integrated course design remains limited in higher education. This session reports on 2015 research, using in-depth interviews, into how hearing from their own past students, now university alumni, impacted the professors' views of their courses. It sheds light on what alumni can reflect on that current undergraduate students cannot and suggests that alumni feedback can be a new tool for faculty development, capturing diverse student perspectives and context not possible with student evaluations.

Authors

• Patricia L. Dinneen, The George Washington University

• Karen L. Kortecamp, The George Washington University