Feedback from students is considered one of the most effective ways to enhance your teaching and students’ learning (Keutzer, 1993). We encourage you to consider attaining feedback from students early in the term, mid-term, and of course, students will complete the Course Experience Survey at end-of-term. Cohen (1980) found the following benefits of midterm feedback:

• It helps improve teaching effectiveness and instructor feeling of competence.
• It improves student attitudes towards the course and the subject matter
• It improves instructor end-of-term student evaluation scores (Cohen, 1980; Harris & Stevens, 2013).

What are some considerations in gathering feedback?

Before administering a mid-term course survey, take into consideration the following:

1. Carefully plan the right time to request feedback. The feedback form should be administered at the beginning of the teaching session. For example, if you ask to fill out the feedback form at the end of class, students tend to rush through the form and if you ask right after a test, it will likely only solicit comments related to the test.
2. Think of mid-term feedback as a collaborative project with the students, focused on working together to make the course better. Present it to students in this way as well.
3. Respond to mid-term feedback – it is courteous to acknowledge any issues that were identified. Consider summarizing the main points gathered from the feedback forms and share with students what was stated as positive and what could be improved. Emphasize any suggestions that cannot be addressed right away but will be useful for future offerings of the course. This also provides the opportunity to tell students why certain suggestions cannot be changed.
4. Always ensure that feedback is anonymous. Students must feel secure that their feedback will not affect their grades and they will be more honest and candid as a result.
5. Remember to limit feedback questions to areas you have control over.
6. Do not solicit or encourage comments on personal aspects.
7. Clearly state the purpose of the feedback form (for example, to see if there are any adjustments that can be made to the course to improve student’s learning experiences).
8. Avoid “yes” or “no” questions.
9. Consider providing a disclaimer at the top of the feedback form. For example: “Thank you for taking the time to provide thoughtful feedback. I welcome and will consider all suggestions regarding how your learning can be supported for the remainder of the course. It may not be possible to implement changes to course structure this term, however, your suggestions will help me improve the course for the future.”
10. Students may be receiving multiple surveys across their courses, so be mindful of the added time and mental energy that your survey will add for the student, particularly if it needs to be completed outside of synchronous class time. Try to keep your survey relatively short and easy to answer (using a more conversational vs. academic tone might help with this) to reduce the burden.

 

What kind of questions should you ask?

It can be difficult for students to reflect on their learning experience midway through the semester. They often need some prompting to recall exactly what worked. Therefore, use direct questions about particular details of the course.

For example, consider asking questions such as:

• How did the opportunities for reflective writing at the end of each class help you understand the subject matter?
• When completing the assignments, do you feel like you have enough information and examples to do your best work, or do you feel like you are missing something?
• When have you felt the most engaged in the course? When have you felt the least engaged? Describe the circumstances or learning activities that led to either of these.
• Can you think of specific examples where you feel like your learning has been supported in this course?
• What can be done further to support your learning in this course? Explain and suggest what might be done differently and why you think this would be supportive.
• What challenges, if any, are you facing while engaging in remote learning in this course?

Consider asking students to reflect on what they can do to better their learning experience. This indicates to students that learning and teaching is reciprocal. For example:

• What could you – as a student – do to make the course better for yourself, your classmates, and the instructor?
• Think of a time in your courses where you have felt successful and proud of your work as a learner. What actions did you take to enable that?

You can also include a few multiple choice or Likert scale questions types to find out information like how much stress students are experiencing in your course. These are helpful if you have a lot of students in your course; if you’re considering checking in with your students at multiple points during the semester to compare how sentiments have shifted; or similarly, if you’d like to ask different iterations of the course the same questions to compare averages across course offerings.

These example questions are available in our Mid-Term Feedback Question collection in the Brightspace Learning Object Repository. Learn how to use the Mid-Term Feedback Question Collection.

 

How do you collect feedback online?

 

Use the Mid-Term Feedback Survey package

The LTSI-TIL has created a Mid-Term Feedback Survey package that you can download and use in your Brightspace course. Learn how to download, upload, and revise the survey in our help post: How do I use the Mid-Term Feedback Survey package?

 

Create your own Brightspace Survey

One option to gather feedback from students is to set up a survey within Brightspace:

1. On the navigation bar, go to the Course Tools drop-down menu and click on Surveys
2. Click on New Survey
3. Give your survey a name
4. Click on the ‘make results anonymous’ checkbox to ensure that your students feel comfortable being open and honest with their feedback
5. Click Add/Edit Questions to add new questions or to import them from your question library
   1. There are several question types that might be helpful in getting both quantitative and qualitative feedback from students including multiple choice, Likert scale, and short answer
   2. We have created a Brightspace question collection with some questions that you might be interested in asking your students. Learn how to use the Mid-Term Feedback Question Collection.
6. Click on the Restrictions tab to modify the survey availability and to limit students to one ‘attempt’.
7. Save your survey
8. After your anonymous survey has closed, you can review the overall (combined) results for each question. Navigate to the Surveys area, click on the drop-down arrow next to your survey and click on
9. You can share the survey results with students if you’d like by navigating to the Surveys area, clicking on the drop-down arrow next to your survey and clicking on Click on the Reports Setup tab and create a custom report to share with the students in your course.

 

Use Zoom Whiteboarding & Annotation

During a live session, you can also use the whiteboard and annotate tools within Zoom to collect feedback from students. Some examples include:

• Opening up the whiteboard and posing a question to the students, asking them to use the text tool to respond with their answer.
• Screensharing a slide deck with a series of photos and asking students to use the annotate tool to circle the one that most closely represents how they’re feeling about the course.
• Screensharing a slide deck with an image of a thermometer and asking students to use the annotate tool to place a dot on the thermometer, indicating their level of stress.

You can also save the information recorded by opening the whiteboard toolbar, clicking the arrow next to Save and selecting either a PNG or PDF file to download.

It’s important you hide the names of the annotators so that students remain anonymous while they are commenting.

1. Start your whiteboard or screenshare
2. From the toolbar, click on More
3. Click Hide Names of Annotators from the drop-down menu

 

References

Bullock, C.D. (2003). Online collection of midterm student feedback. New Directions for Teaching and learning, no. 96, Winter.

Cohen, P. A. (1980). Effectiveness of student-rating feedback for improving college instruction: A meta-analysis of findings. Research in Higher Education, 13(4) 321-34.

Diamond, M. R. (2004). The usefulness of structured mid-term feedback as a catalyst for change in higher education classes. Active Learning in Higher Education, 5(3) 217–231.

Harris, G.L.A., & Stevens, D.D. (2013). The value of midterm student feedback in cross-disciplinary graduate programs. Journal of Public Administration Education, 19(3) 537-558.

Keutzer, C.S. (1993). Midterm evaluation of teaching provides helpful feedback to instructors. Teaching of Psychology, 20(4) 238-240

McKeachie, W. J., & Svinicki. M. (2006). McKeachie’s teaching tips: Strategies, research, and theory for college and university teachers. Boston, New York: Houghton Mifflin.