for students to do at the end of each class:

2 things learned today or thought about in a new way
1 question about the material or 1 new question inspired by the material
1 piece of feedback on today’s lesson

Have had a mixed experience asking these of my students.

I had one person tell me personally that I had presented an excellent session. I gave participants a technology activity that they could use on Monday morning with hints as to what I learned and links to electronic copies of the documents that I used. I also tied it to why I decided to use this activity and the math practices it addressed. This activity has been used from elementary to high school. I also presented an activity that could be used with a little more prep but all of the documents that I used. Both had student work examples.

This was my first time presenting at CMC. Not sure what I need to do to improve. I have applied to do the same presentation at CUE.

Also, there needs to be an alternative to sending a text for evaluating the session. I don’t have that service on my phone and I had some sessions I wanted to review. I wonder how many participants had the same issue?

All good comments above.

CMC South is definitely Top Shelf. Thanks to all who make it happen.

gave a few apps but talked mostly about how to teach instead of how to use apps or what apps would be beneficial

We cannot grow as a professional group unless we focus on the teaching first. Tech often has a front seat at big conferences and as a result, we get to talk about shiny toys and one-off activities, but classroom practice rarely changes as a result. Conferences have managed to create a positive (negative?) feedback loop from which feeds itself from year to year.

I had several conversations with other participants at CMC South about whether the response rate would be higher or lower using Poll Everywhere (compared to those little slips of carbon paper I’ve seen at other conferences). Most of us suspected lower… I love that the feedback that DID roll in is digital (I always seem to lose little bits of paper), but I suspect that shoving a small sheet of paper in front of participants would have generated larger returns. Not sure on the best way forward here.

Another thought: Are Google Forms a viable option here? Seems like the data would easier to share with specific people there. Of course, we’d be excluding those without smartphones or laptops. (Do a lot of attendees have flip phones and no other device?)

As for drawing conclusions from what feels like an incomplete and overly positive set of responses, what about this as an alternative measure of presenter effectiveness:

(average score) – (number of responses) ÷ (room capacity)

I know I’m more likely to complete a feedback form if I have something positive to say. It doesn’t mean all silence is damning, but I wonder if others are wired in similar ways.

Of course, there should probably be a square root somewhere in that formula, just for good measure.

When it comes to conferences (and school), maybe we have no choice but to aim to please.

There are two different audiences for the feedback: the conference organizers and conference presenters. I suspect for conference organizers, short-term attendee satisfaction is sufficient.

We need other kinds of feedback to determine the quality of the session. Maybe exit tickets? Maybe we want to send emails and ask about the content of the session?

The post-conference email strikes a nice balance between practicality and usefulness. I’ll bet the response rate wouldn’t be any lower than the 10% I found for the text messages.

Asking attendees to name from memory the speakers they attended would be interesting. Asking them to mention their most important takeaway messages and from whom they learned those messages might be even better.

I don’t know of any research on this question from the perspective of conference attendees, but there’s a literature on this from the perspective of student evaluations. And it shows that people are fairly biased in their evaluations.

If you’re a man, you’re going to receive higher ratings. If you defy expectations in any way, you’re likely to receive lower ratings. If you’re black, you’re likely to receive lower ratings. Little, if any, correlation between what you learn and how you’re rated. (source)

In the face of all this, how should we react?

1. When it comes to conferences (and school), maybe we have no choice but to aim to please. People can stop coming to our sessions. And maybe our livelihoods depend on people attending our sessions. Or maybe we just want people to be happy about their experiences.

The issue is that we have little reason to think that this will correspond to how much our participants (or students) actually learn. So…

2. We need other kinds of feedback to determine the quality of the session. Maybe exit tickets? Maybe we want to send emails and ask about the content of the session? Who knows.