每日大赛

Unique fellowship program allows students to provide lessons to teachers

每日大赛 professors are learning from their students through a unique fellowship program that solicits feedback on teaching methods.

Established with a grant from the Tennessee Board of Regents, the Partnership for Academic and Career Enrichment trains students to provide meaningful feedback that can help instructors improve their presentations in the classroom.

“The focus of the program allows students and faculty to work together to enhance their course in some way, their approach to teaching – maybe revitalize what they’re doing,” said Antija Allen, director of the Pellissippi Academic Center for Excellence. 

The program launched last fall with 10 pairs of students and faculty members. Student fellows undertook a rigorous application and interview process for the paid opportunity, completed an orientation and received observation and feedback training. 

The students learned how to sit in on classes and evaluate whether a professor is exclusively lecturing students or engaging them in conversation and if they are using the classroom space to its fullest potential.

“Being able to understand how to observe someone, and more importantly, how to provide feedback that's constructive, is really important,” Allen said.

Students were trained in one of three areas: universal design for learning, transparency in learning and teaching or active learning. They were then paired with a faculty member outside the student’s area of study to evaluate that professor’s course.

Over the course of the next semester, student fellows either observed a handful of classes by their faculty partner or audited a particular assignment from their course, met with them regularly and attended coaching sessions with Allen and other members of the Pellissippi Academic Center for Excellence. The faculty participants were also trained on how to mentor the fellows not as their teachers, but as their peers.

“It’s a conversation,” Allen said. “And it’s not punitive, which I think some people think about with feedback. For faculty, the feedback is meaningful because these are students who have been trained.”

This type of partnership is more common at four-year institutions, which meant Allen had to be creative about adapting it for a two-year college. One way she did so was by initially opening it up to exclusively adult learners – like 55-year-old Manderley Swain.

Swain, a Studio Arts major who graduated from Pellissippi in December 2024, came to the college as the first stepping stone in her pursuit of a new career in art therapy. She evaluated an engineering faculty member and said she found the courses engaging and fascinating and the professor welcoming and accommodating.

“Top to bottom, I really valued every interaction and every person that I met through the program,” Swain said. “The tools for how to share your observations with the professor were incredibly impactful.” 

Detailed and neutral feedback from students is unique for faculty, Allen said, and hearing from those they’re teaching can lead to unexpected connections.

Business and Computer Technology Instructor Samira Abdalla said the Criminal Justice student she partnered with offered suggestions that will elevate the classroom experience for her students.

“She did a phenomenal job,” Abdalla said. “Even coming from a different major. I appreciated the fresh set of eyes … the feedback is a gift.”

Above all, the program equips students with communication and collaboration skills they can use first to connect with faculty who can later become mentors and act as professional references.

The students “are learning how to observe behaviors,” Allen said. “They're learning how to communicate in general, but also they're learning how to provide feedback in a constructive way and then follow up on that feedback – which is a very important skill I think is missing for many people.”

The Partnership for Academic and Career Enrichment will continue next academic year as an official student-employment position, open to all students – not just adult learners – and with alumni of the program now able to act as peer coaches to new members.

“We want it to expand and grow,” Allen said.