Feedback Loops: Gathering Feedback from Students about the Effectiveness of Your Course

Just ask! Sometimes you must ask the right question to get the conversation started. An example of a great prompt for student feedback is to ask students to share “The one thing I wish I had known before I took this course is...” Replies to this prompt are exactly the kind of information that can help you address misunderstandings or clear up poor instructions or explanations. For example, when a student makes it known that they are having difficulty following along with course assignments and due dates, a responsive educator could

• address the learner’s need immediately by pointing to ways to view course assignments and timelines.
• consider making changes to help future students find this information more easily.

Remember to follow through with clear messaging about how you will address student feedback and when students can expect to see the result of their feedback in the course. This enhances student agency and can foster engagement where students know their voices are heard and valued. You can ask students for feedback in any number of ways, including announcements, email, discussion boards, anonymous surveys, and paper and pencil.

An ungraded, anonymous mid-semester survey offers students a chance to voice concerns and ask questions about a course and its administration. Surveys of this type can be setup easily in Canvas. Compiled results can fuel a follow-up conversation and/or announcement where the instructor can address student feedback by answering questions and alleviating issues or making plans to do so.

A recent survey in EME 801: Energy Markets, Policy, and Regulation helped the instructor understand that students were generally happy with the course but wanted more clarity surrounding assignments and more specific rubrics. For the remainder of the course, these changes could be implemented right away, satisfying student requests, and previous assignment specifications could be improved for future students. In this case, student feedback was valuable in helping the instructor understand students’ perspectives and perceptions. It also helped instigate positive changes.

The survey in EME 801 asked the following questions:

• Are you generally pleased with the course so far or are you frustrated with some aspects of it? Please explain, briefly and in a constructive manner.
• Have you been able to navigate the course materials without problems? If not, please indicate what would be helpful for a better experience.
• How is the clarity of the course assignments? Do the instructions and rubrics offer enough information? When working on assignments, are you confident that you understand what's asked of you?
• Would a weekly Canvas Announcement reminding you of what to expect for each new lesson/module be helpful to you?
• Have you benefitted from our class discussions? How? Or why not?
• Do you feel welcome and included in our classroom community? Why or why not?
• What can I do to help you succeed in this course? Please explain. You may also use this space to record anything else you'd like to communicate to me.

Do you ever notice that a large percentage of students are having a hard time grasping a concept or following procedures properly? It might be time to send out a quick survey to figure out what’s going on. Soliciting student feedback to gain an understanding of where students are coming from can help you hone your teaching to make the maximum impact.

One reoccurring issue that many instructors report is their students’ lack of proper use of citations in their work. A survey addressing this problem could contain the following questions:

• Do you know when you need to cite other peoples’ work?
• On a scale of 0 (no confidence) to 3 (full confidence), how confident are you in your ability to cite other peoples’ work properly?
• When, in the course of your education, did you learn to give credit or cite properly?
• What tools do you use for citing others’ work? (Penn State Libraries; Zotero, etc.)
• Why do you think citing others’ work is important?

The information collected in this survey could result in tailored messaging about citations and adding additional instruction to the course. This could include inviting a writing specialist as a guest lecturer or adding instructional materials, self-checks, and quizzes to the course.

The one-minute paper is an assessment strategy that can be used to evaluate what students have learned and what they are struggling with. Students are asked two to three questions about a lecture, video, lab, field trip, discussion, or any other activity, and are given one minute to write their response. The questions should encourage students to consider what was most significant, surprising, important, disturbing, or useful, and what was unclear or difficult to understand. This can be done at the start of class to reflect on what was learned in the previous class or at the end of class to consider what was learned that day.

The instructor should read the minute papers to evaluate student progress and identify any gaps in learning and understanding. Information gathered can be used to identify areas that need clarification or review. This activity will also highlight areas the instructor should consider covering more thoroughly in future class periods.

This activity can be done with pencil and paper, or it can be done using technology such as discussion boards, surveys, or low-stakes quizzes in your LMS, etc. One-minute papers can be used in online and face-to-face classes.