GIFT (Group Instructional Feedback Technique) is a faculty peer-led process whereby one trained faculty member visits the classroom of another faculty member to collect feedback on how that faculty member prepares their students from the students’ perspective. The visiting faculty member then prepares a report based on themes that emerged from students’ feedback and shares the report with the requesting faculty member so that they can make immediate changes to help students.

The goal of this interaction is to identify and address hurdles or obstacles that student face which can make success more difficult, and especially where these obstacles are relatively easy to address or eliminate in the short term, but which would normally not surface until end-of-semester course evaluations when it is too late to make changes.

How does GIFT work?

One faculty member (“Sally”) makes a request for another faculty member (“George”) to visit her classroom to get students’ feedback on how Sally prepares her students, as well as what students are doing to prepare themselves. Following the classroom visit, George summarizes themes that emerge based on students’ feedback and shares that information with Sally (anonymously) to help Sally determine where she can make immediate changes that will help her students.

The GIFT process takes place on a mutually agreed-upon date, when the “GIFTee” (Sally) leaves the classroom for the final half hour of the period and allows the “GIFTer” (George) to organize the students into small groups of four or five to brainstorm potential changes. After about 15 minutes of small-group interaction, George would have the small groups report out and share ideas with the large group for further evaluation and to identify recurring themes.

Within a week of the visit, George meets with Sally to share the “big idea” themes for her consideration.

Can I count a GIFT session as a “Student Success Activity”?

Having someone come into your classroom would qualify as participating in a “student success activity” in the Teaching pillar for annual evaluation and P&T purposes, and being trained to go into someone’s classroom would qualify as participating in a “student success activity” in the Service pillar for annual evaluation and P&T purposes.

How do I sign up for GIFT?

If you are interested in having a faculty member visit your classroom and conduct a GIFT or perhaps being trained to perform them yourself in future semesters, please submit a request to initiate the process for consideration.

GSW is presently capable of having trained GIFTers visit as many as fourteen classrooms during the semester.