The Skillful Teacher

The Muddiest Point
In the Muddiest Point exercise, students are asked to jot down their
response to the question “What was the muddiest point you encoun-
tered in the material covered in class today?” Variations on this 
question I have used are “What was the most confusing idea we
addressed today?” or “What was the most poorly explained idea
we covered today?” Both these latter questions are appropriate for lec-
ture or discussion-based classes. In demonstration-based teaching (in
labs or skills-building classes), I ask “What was the most poorly demon-
strated process you observed today?” The muddiest point provides an
indication of what needs to be reviewed next time the class meets.
Depending on what the responses reveal, we can judge whether the
level of confusion is roughly what we’d expect at this stage of
the course, or whether we need to take a serious look at slowing
down the pace of the class in order to revisit earlier concepts or skills.