Mid-Semester Feedback Improves Teaching – and Learning
It’s that time of the semester again … you’ve built some rapport with your students, and everyone is settling into a routine. It’s time to start thinking about how you engage your students, about what’s happening in the classroom that helps them learn effectively, and about what changes you can make that will enhance student success.
As we do each semester, the Center for Teaching and Learning is offering our Mid-Semester Feedback program to help you gather that information. The program gives your students a way to provide you with confidential and anonymous feedback on how the course is organized, whether the students see connections between the assignments and the course's goals and objectives, how students respond to your teaching style and to the resources you provide, and other attributes of the course.
Once you’ve registered and told us which courses to survey, staff from the CTL will set up the survey and invite your students to respond. After your students complete the survey, we will send you the survey results and some recommendations so you can decide how best to 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 your students, helping them understand the rationale behind your design of the course. And sometimes your response might be a request for even more information, perhaps by soliciting information through a minute paper.
Some guidelines:
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One advantage of this approach over the standard end-of-semester course evaluations is that early-semester feedback occurs early enough in the semester that you can make changes in the course right away and see their effect. 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).
Give it a try! Sign up no later than Friday, March 8, 2024 and we'll get your survey ready to go the following week.
Resources:
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