Feedback at the Right Time
We hope you and your students all stay safe from the coming storm and that the closure doesn’t cause much disruption. Teaching continually provides us with new challenges, but we are always impressed with your flexibility and your strategies for preserving student learning experiences.
The coming week will likely be an important time to get feedback on how the course is going for your students—not only because of the storm, but also because we’re approaching the midpoint of the semester. If we think about teaching as an inquiry-driven process, our curiosity about our students and their learning can lead us to improve our courses.
Formative and summative assessments—like activities, assignments, reflections, quizzes, exams, etc.—are ways of collecting evidence of students’ progress toward the learning goals. They help us and our students know what they are doing well and should continue, and what they need to work on or adjust. Student performance on these assessments can also help us see what we might need to tweak to better facilitate their learning.
It’s also valuable to gather information about how students are experiencing the class. We can ask them to write about how the course is going, or to take a survey on which they can provide quantitative and/or qualitative feedback on our teaching. You can use a template or create and distribute your own survey during or outside of class time, using Canvas, Qualtrics, or another survey app. Sample surveys are available here. We’ve developed a sample midterm evaluation that you can import into Canvas, and instructions are available here.
Most midterm feedback surveys ask students about aspects of our course design and teaching practices. A simple set of questions might look something like this:
- What’s working well for you in this course? What’s helping you learn?
- What’s not working well for you? What hinders your learning, or what obstacles are you facing?
- What suggestions do you have that might improve your learning experience in this course?
Since midterm feedback gives us vital information on students’ experience of our teaching, in time to act upon it, they often improve end-of-semester feedback as well. But there are two important provisos: First, students must be confident that the feedback process is safe and anonymous, so that their honesty will not negatively affect their relationship with you or their grade. Second, it’s essential that you follow up with students, thanking them for their feedback and outlining how you’ll use it, accommodating reasonable, useful suggestions and explaining why others aren’t feasible this semester.
If you’d like support, we’re happy to help you design a method of collecting feedback that works well for your course. We can also help you interpret the results, consider adjustments you’d like to make, and plan how you will discuss the feedback with students. Just send us an email at pro-teaching@fsu.edu, and we’ll be at your service. We look forward to working with you!