Student Feedback

Students need feedback to learn from their performance. But what about instructors? How do you gather useful feedback from your students to facilitate continued learning and improvement in your course? Feedback is not only crucial for enhancing your students’ experience but also for tracking your progress as an educator and employee of the University.

Review from ETE Conference 2024


When and How to Gather Feedback

There are numerous ways to gather feedback from your students, both during and outside of class time, directly and indirectly. It’s beneficial to have specific questions in mind when asking for feedback—questions about the last class or a particular assignment. Broad questions like “How do you feel about this course?” are often too vague to yield actionable answers.

Here are some ideas for instructors:

In-Class Review

  1. Active Learning: Break your class into teaching and response sections to create natural opportunities for feedback and adjustment.
  2. Start-of-Class Polls: Begin your class with a poll—not a graded quiz—to wake students up and gauge their understanding and readiness for the next topic. Consider these types of questions:
    • Feelings Questions: “How did you feel about this topic?” or “Was the activity interesting to you?” These questions help indirectly gauge the effectiveness of your instruction.
    • Self-Evaluation Questions: “How confident are you in your ability to _____?” or “Rate your understanding of ______ from 1 (not at all) to 10 (I could teach a class on it).” These can also be framed as teacher-evaluation questions, such as “Did you enjoy the activity yesterday?” but avoid asking “Did I do a good job?”
    • Quiz Questions: Even if ungraded, these can help identify areas where students struggle or excel, informing your teaching strategy.
    • Fun Questions: Unrelated questions like “Which football team are you rooting for this weekend?” can help students relax and engage more honestly with serious questions. They also build familiarity and rapport.

Out-of-Class Review

  1. IDEA Evaluations: End-of-semester IDEA evaluations provide invaluable insights into students’ overall experience. Carefully curate your objectives to get the best results.
  2. Personalized Evaluations: Create your own evaluation criteria for midterm evaluations to address specific or time-sensitive questions about your course. Early feedback can be more accurate for issues from the beginning of the semester.
  3. Assignments: Use assignments to indirectly assess how well students understand or enjoy a topic. Whether graded or ungraded, assignments can provide insights into the effectiveness of your teaching.

How to Implement Feedback

After gathering feedback, it’s important to know when and how to use it. Depending on the issue, you may need to act immediately or plan changes for the next semester.

  1. Gauging Useful Feedback: Keep an open mind and discern which feedback is relevant. Even if feedback seems unrelated to course content, consider if it points to a deeper issue.
  2. Tracking Feedback: Create a table or graph to track recurring comments and identify patterns. Develop solutions iteratively, revising your approach over multiple classes or semesters. If a revision doesn’t work, try another method or consider redesigning the assignment.