Collect Mid-Semester Feedback to Improve Student Learning
Collecting student feedback a few weeks into your course is a great way to see how things are going and demonstrates to your students that you care about their concerns and ideas. Each semester Center for Teaching and Learning offers a service we call Mid-Semester Feedback, to help you learn what’s working well for your students and what can be improved.
One advantage of this approach over the standard end-of-semester course evaluations is that mid-semester feedback occurs early enough in the semester that you can make changes in the course right away and see the effects of the changes. Students respond positively when their comments result in changes to the course, leading to improved student attitudes about the class and/or instructor in the end-of-semester evaluations (Keutzer, 1993; Overall and Marsh, 1979).
You may preview a copy of the survey at http://bit.ly/MSF-Questions – you have the option to add 1-2 questions specific to your course. There's space on the registration form for you to tell us what those questions are.
If you are interested, please sign up for the mid-semester feedback program by Friday, October 16, 2024. After signing up, a member of the CTL staff will set up the survey and send you an anonymous link to share with your students.
After your students complete the survey, CTL staff will help you interpret the survey results and decide how to best respond to your students' needs. Sometimes your response might include making a change to an aspect of the course. Sometimes your response might be a conversation with the students in which you explain the rationale you used in designing the course, and how they might engage better with it.
All feedback is confidential, anonymous, and provides a way to assess and be responsive to students' needs while the semester is in progress.
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DIY Option
If you prefer to gather the feedback on your own, one simple strategy you can use is called “Start-Stop-Continue.” It takes about 15 minutes of class time.
Ask the students to answer three questions. Stress the anonymity of the process and that you are only interested in understanding how things are going and whether you should consider making any changes.
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Framing the questions around learning helps keep students focused when responding.
Make a copy of this Microsoft Form) to collect the students’ responses, and review them after class. During the next class period, take some time at the beginning to discuss the results with your students. Topics might include:
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Collecting this feedback benefits both you and your students because it helps you to identify problem issues while you are teaching the class, rather than after the class is over (which is often the case with more formal end of semester evaluations). It also helps build good will with your students and shows them that you value their opinions and ideas.
One important caveat: if you collect mid-semester feedback, you must respond to students’ input. Asking for their feedback and then not processing it in a meaningful way may alienate students and potentially damage any rapport you’ve built with them throughout the semester. I’ve found that if you engage in this process earnestly with students, they generate very insightful, helpful suggestions for improving the course.
Resources:
- Keutzer, C. S. (1993). Midterm evaluation of teaching provides helpful feedback to instructors. Teaching Psychology, 20(4), 238–240.
- Overall, J. U., & Marsh, H. W. (1979). Midterm feedback from student: Its relationship to instructional improvement and students' cognitive and affective outcomes. Journal of Educational Psychology, 71(6), 856–865.