Student feedback is a valuable tool for faculty to identify what is working well and what could be improved in their teaching to better support student learning. Collecting and applying student feedback can also foster a collaborative classroom environment where students feel valued and engaged in the educational process.
Mid-Semester Feedback
“Feedback should be sought early and often, not just at the end of a course” .
(CAUT, 2018, p. 8)
In addition to the end-of-semester feedback students provide through Memorial’s Course Experience Questionnaire (CEQ), creating opportunities to receive mid-semester feedback can benefit you and your students.
Mid-semester feedback is a strong motivator for enhancing your teaching practices (Flodén, 2016). Unlike data from CEQs, mid-semester feedback can be applied immediately to adjust teaching strategies or clarify course expectations. Soliciting students’ feedback on your teaching can also foster open dialogue, inviting students to view themselves as important members of the learning community (Hurney, Harris, Prins, & Kruck, 2014) .
Opportunities to gather mid-semester feedback range from informal and brief to specific and structured. Below are three common approaches you can adapt.
One-Minute Papers
One-minute papers (sometimes also referred to as one-minute memos, exit cards, or muddiest points) are an effective method to gather ongoing student feedback on your teaching and course delivery.
In the last few minutes of class, students are asked to quickly jot down their responses to questions such as “What was the most important thing you learned today?” and “What remains unclear?” This technique provides immediate insights into students’ understanding and perceptions, allowing the instructor to address any confusion in subsequent classes and make timely adjustments to their teaching approach.
Stop-Start-Continue
A stop-start-continue invites students to provide structured feedback in response to three categories. Students identify aspects of the course they believe should: “stop,” such as a confusing class activity; “start,” such as new resources or strategies for presenting information; and “continue,” such as enjoyable lecture formats or other aspects of the course they find beneficial.
This structured approach provides specific insights into what students perceive as successful or challenging, guiding the instructor in refining their teaching methods and enhancing the overall learning experience based on direct student input.
Instructors can create a stop-start-continue in-person or online using tools like Padlet, the Webex whiteboard feature, or other online learning technologies. To ensure anonymity, you could distribute index cards or a handout and ask students:
- What would you like to see more of?
- What would you like to see less of?
- What would you like to see done differently (Marx, 2019)?
Questionnaires
University-wide questionnaires like the CEQ are standardized across disciplines and faculties. As such, they often provide general feedback about a course (Frick et al., 2010). To complement end–of-semester CEQ data, customized mid-semester questionnaires can provide instructors more tailored feedback on students’ experiences in their specific courses. Designing your own questionnaire lets you adjust the timing, questions, and analysis to best contribute to student learning and your personal teaching development.
Questionnaires can be created using Google Forms, Qualtrics, other survey software, or the Brightspace Survey tool. The Survey tool allows a variety of question formats including Likert-style, multiple-choice, and open-ended questions. Students access the survey via a link in the Brightspace course shell and you can view and export the results.
Visit the Technology Resources site for instructions on using the Brightspace Survey tool.
Before you Solicit Feedback
When choosing how and when to solicit feedback on student learning experiences, reflect on your course and instructional approach. What do you want to know about the following?
- course organization and structure;
- teaching and learning activities and resources;
- assessment methods and grading;
- student learning outcomes;
- instructional style; and
- learning environment.
Create Conditions for Success
To help ensure you receive valuable feedback and encourage meaningful student participation while clarifying the purpose behind seeking their feedback, consider the following strategies.
- Make sure your approach draws out information that will help you make good decisions about what to change and how for the remainder of the semester and in future course offerings.
- Assure students that their feedback is anonymous.
- Remind students of the characteristics of constructive feedback (respectful, specific, useful, etc.).
- Where appropriate, ask students to give a specific number of responses, for example:
“List three activities you engaged in during this module/unit that helped your learning”.
- Where appropriate, ask students to give a specific number of responses, for example:
- Let students know that you value their feedback and use it to make adjustments to your teaching and improvements to the course.
- Provide a few examples of how you’ve used feedback to make improvements in the past.
- If using online tools in Brightspace, announce the availability of the feedback questionnaire. Remind students to complete the survey and provide them with a link to it using Announcements, Email, or Discussions.
After you Solicit Feedback
Once you review the feedback you receive, consider how you will implement any changes in the course and how you will document and reflect on these changes for future course offerings and your teaching dossier.
Implementing Changes
One of the benefits of mid-semester feedback is the opportunity to discuss and clarify feedback with your students. Consider devoting a few minutes of class time to provide a high-level summary of the feedback you received. During this conversation, you can inform students of any small changes you plan to make. Sometimes students will make suggestions that you can not or will not implement. You can acknowledge these suggestions and clarify why you will not be implementing them so students still feel heard.
Ex. 1
“I gathered that the majority of the class appreciates the weekly overviews I post in the Brightspace Announcements, but many of you would like to see these posts earlier. Based on this feedback, I will commit to posting the weekly overview on Fridays so you can see where we’re headed next week.”
Ex. 2
“I received a few comments requesting that I change the evaluation method of this course to include shorter but more frequent assessments. I appreciate the suggestion; however methods of evaluation cannot be changed during the semester unless warranted by exceptional circumstances. I will keep these comments in mind when preparing to teach this course in the future.”
Documenting Changes
When preparing a teaching dossier for promotion and tenure or for teaching awards applications, you may be expected to provide evidence of continual self-evaluation and ongoing teaching development (CAUT, 2018). In your dossier, you may choose to include positive student comments collected in your mid-semester feedback as well as a record of the changes you have made based on student feedback and your self-evaluation (Canadian Association of University Teachers, 2018).
Carefully documenting and reflecting on your strategies for soliciting student feedback can serve as important evidence of your teaching effectiveness in your teaching dossier.
To read a sample excerpt of how this evidence can be integrated into your teaching dossier, click here.
“Regularly seeking and incorporating student feedback is one of the most effective ways I’ve found to build trust and keep my students engaged. In all my courses, I actively poll students about topics they are interested in and try to include those examples in lectures whenever possible. In addition to my university’s end-of-course survey, I administer a mid-term survey of my own design (Appendix C) and urge students to provide honest feedback, whether positive or negative. These surveys have provided useful feedback over the years. For example, I used to facilitate a peer-review assignment during class, but frequently heard that students wished they could review their classmates’ work anonymously. Now, I have students complete peer review online using our LMS, as the online tool keeps peer reviewer identities hidden to the reviewee (and vice versa). This adaptation preserves my learning outcomes and the integrity of the assignment, while responding to the needs of my students to ensure they feel they can learn most effectively.
“At the start of each semester, I review the previous year’s constructive criticisms and share these suggestions with the new class. I feel it is important to explain how I have modified the course in response to both mid-term and end-of-term feedback. This practice not only enhances the quality of my courses but also demonstrates to students that their input is valued and can lead to meaningful improvements.”
Helpful Resources
The following documents provide examples you may find helpful when choosing how to solicit feedback from students.
- Start, Stop, & Continue Template from Algonquin College Centre for Organizational Learning: A downloadable template
- IDEA Student Ratings of Instruction—Using Additional Questions, from IDEA Education: Questions for special teaching situations such as labs, seminars, and studio courses; about instructor characteristics and instructional approach; and about assignments, exams and grades.
References
- Canadian Association of University Teachers. (2018). CAUT teaching dossier. Caut-teaching-dossier_2018-11_online_version.pdf
- Flodén, J. (2017). The impact of student feedback on teaching in higher education. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 42(7), 1054-1068. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2016.1224997
- Frick, T. W., Chadha, R., Watson, C., & Zlatkovska, E. (2010). Improving course evaluations to improve instruction and complex learning in higher education. Educational Technology Research and Development, 58(2), 115–136. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-009-9131-z
- Hurney, C., Harris, N., Bates Prins, S., & Kruck, S. E. (2014). The impact of a learner-centered, mid-semester course evaluation on students. The journal of faculty development, 28(3), 55-62.
- Marx, R. (2019). Soliciting and utilizing mid-semester feedback. Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching. Retrieved July 2, 2024 from https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/student-feedback/.
Originally Published: April 7, 2020
Last Updated: August 21, 2024
