2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

In this Empirical Research Full Paper, we present a large-scale weekly student feedback system that identifies barriers to learning and “muddiest points”. This system was designed to promote inclusive teaching: barriers tend to be more prevalent/severe in students with disabilities, financial disadvantages, or mental health conditions; and students from underrepresented groups are typically more reluctant to raise concerns unprompted. Our pilot program uses centralized support to minimize instructor time commitment and may provide a model for other initiatives to scale up evidence-based teaching interventions.

Students complete a brief online survey just before they leave class; completing the survey is their “Ticket Home.” Students are asked 3 questions:
1. What was the most confusing concept in this week’s classes?
2. What is one thing you liked about this week’s classes?
3. How could we make this week’s classes more effective?

Question 1 is a “muddiest point” reflection to promote metacognition and anchor responses in the material. Question 2 encourages positive feedback, which can increase self-efficacy and motivation. Question 3 solicits barriers to learning that might be leading to extraneous cognitive load. The survey is also intended to improve classroom climates by helping students’ voices to be heard and valued.

We administered this survey at a scale unprecedented in our college. 9 instructors of 11 classes in 5 departments (primarily biomedical engineering and CS), teaching 422 students, are using the Ticket Home system in Fall 2024. Instructors received sample materials and were asked to complete a brief weekly survey about their usage of the Ticket Home. This led to 2,739 Ticket Home responses to 101 class sessions. Student Ticket Home responses most often requested examples and practice, slower paces and more breaks, more guidance on assignments, and more active learning exercises.

We provided centralized support to reduce instructors’ time burden. An undergraduate Teaching Assistant (TA) read the responses to each course’s survey and summarized them for the instructor. This summary was provided at least 24 hours before the next class period so the instructor could review it and adjust their teaching. Instructors could also access individual responses. On average, instructors reported spending 4.76 minutes per week in class and 5.73 minutes per week between classes on the Ticket Home. The TA reported spending 71.9 minutes/week summarizing responses and assisting instructors. Students spent 1.33 minutes responding to the Ticket Home.

Exit surveys from instructors were universally positive. 100% of instructors agreed (i.e., selected “agree” or “strongly agree”) with the statements “'The Ticket Home helped me to identify barriers to learning,” “The Ticket Home helped me identify points of confusion,” “The Ticket Home helped my students feel heard and valued,” and “I would like to keep using the Ticket Home in my future classes.” 61% of students agreed (6% disagreed) with “I would like to keep using the Ticket Home in my future classes.”

Taken together, these results suggest that the Ticket Home can be scaled to multiple courses and maintained over the course of a semester. We are currently offering the Ticket Home to instructors for their Spring semester courses. Several instructors will use the system a second time, testing the effect of multi-semester experience with the system. Results will be used to inform future offerings of the Ticket Home and other scalable teaching interventions.