Noba Blog

Midterm Feedback - Do's, Don'ts, Making It Easy

Posted September 24, 2015

By Steven Bengal

How are my slides? Am I talking too fast, or too slowly? Is there something I’m not doing that my students expect from me? Is the course work overwhelming, or trivially easy? How is this class actually going!?

Don't let the suggestion box gather dust until the semester is over. Jump in early by collecting meaningful mid-term feedback that you can use to improve your teaching. [Image: Hash Milhan]
Many instructors, particularly new ones, find it more difficult to assess the student experience of a psychology course than student mastery of the course material. Indeed, if students are struggling, questions regarding their motivation and preparation may come head-to-head with concerns over vague prompts, unclear presentations, and dull lectures. The goal of any pedagogue is to provide the appropriate resources and environment to not just allow for, but to spur student understanding and academic success.

To this end, many instructors try to assess not only student learning of course material, but also solicit feedback on their own instruction. Often, universities will allow students to provide some end-of-term responses about their instructor and overall experiences. However, these evaluations suffer from a variety of issues: 1) low response rates due to a lack of personal interest, 2) vague, standardized questions, independent of the style of course, and 3) they are offered too late for the instructor to make meaningful changes.

Feedback is valuable and-- just as one uses exams to make sure their students are mastering course material-- instructors are often equally interested in making sure they are progressing as teachers.

What is midterm feedback?

Midterm feedback refers to any questionnaire or discussion that allows students to report on their experiences in a class. It is any feedback that does not occur after a semester or year is over but during the course of a class. Often this feedback is collected after the first quarter of a course, so the students have had time to really experience the general flow of a class.

Why use midterm feedback?

Teachers often have the unique opportunity to adjust the way they perform their job. From different supplementary materials, to speed of presentation, to adjusting the style of PowerPoint, oftentimes teachers have the ability to modify their courses in order to attempt to provide the best environment for their students. But what, if anything, should they change?

While there are a host of reasons for providing midterm feedback, I will narrow it down to four central bases:

  1. Midterm feedback will allow for a more accurate view of in-class learning, student desires, and expectations.
  2. Midterm feedback, as opposed to end-of-term, allows the instructor a unique opportunity body of information about the student experience right now.
  3. Midterm feedback allows enough time for an instructor to make adjustments to the course, if desired, during the current semester.
  4. Importantly, midterm feedback prompts student investment! Quizzes, exams, essays; often instructors are consistently evaluating their students. Offering midterm feedback is offering your class an opportunity to evaluate you, as an instructor. Demonstrating to your class that they may have an active role in course policy and class content should help improve their commitment to attention and interest in the course material, after all, they are taking an active contributing role in guiding their own education.

How to actually acquire feedback?

There are a variety of resources one can use as a basis for acquiring midterm feedback. A few are listed below:

  1. University Teaching Centers: Many large universities have a center which can provide any instructor a host of resources on everything from course design to feedback. Use university resources, such as trained facilitators, to your advantage!
  2. Questionnaires: In-class questionnaires are a great method of acquiring feedback. Make sure to set aside a portion of class time, preferably at the beginning of a class, to allow your students to provide anonymous feedback. Online questionnaires can be used as an alternative. They tend to have lower response rates but do not interfere as much with class time. It is possible to incentivize participation by offering extra credit.

Do’s of midterm feedback:

  1. Always allow enough time for feedback. If you are taking class time, make sure you allot extra time and that students do not feel rushed.
  2. Present feedback as allowing students to take a collaborative investment in how the course works. This is key: make sure to only ask for feedback on things you are able or willing to consider changing. If there is a course feature that the administration requires, or you would absolutely refuse to see go, then asking for feedback may be a bit disingenuous.
  3. Respond quickly to student feedback. Show your students that you seriously care about their experience. Give them an overview of what the feedback said, what you plan to do with it, and so forth. If you receive conflicting feedback (e.g., some students find the course to be too slow, some too fast), bring this up with the class! Ask for suggestions and open a dialogue.
  4. Personalize the feedback for yourself and your course. This feedback is best when tailored for specific issues you know you’ve had in the past or want to avoid. Worried about talking too fast? Concerned your students aren’t enjoying your slides? Ask them! The more specific your questions, the better able you will be to address the student concerns.

Don'ts of midterm feedback:

  1. Don't change things without serious consideration. This may sound surprising, given the tone of the article, but do not flip your entire course design based on just a little bit of feedback! Oftentimes, instructors will only glance at positive feedback and focus on the negatives. Radically changing a course feature that most people are fine with to appease a few people who do not enjoy it may end up hurting more student experiences in the long run! Carefully consider the overall distribution of the class attitudes. Tell your class why or why you are not changing certain features, and make sure to not put too much weight on a small portion of the responses!
  2. Don't give a false impression of what is changeable. If you ask “What changes would you make to the course load?” students will anticipate that you will be able or willing to adjust this, when it may be out of your hands. Make sure to ask for clear, specific information about the student experience, on topics that you have control over. Students may feel hoodwinked if they collectively respond to not enjoy some aspect of the course that you then inform them you have no control over.
  3. Don't leave the students in the dark. Always, always, always take time out of the course to carefully go over the responses on the feedback. Make sure your students know that you have read what they have said, value their opinions, and are looking into how the course works. If they respond positively, you can share some of the more enjoyable comments. If there are critiques, discuss them. Ensuring that their opinions are heard and their experience is important is key to making them feel invested in the course: this isn’t just a course they are passively experiencing, but one they are actively invested in shaping.

Concluding Thoughts

Midterm feedback is a valuable source of information, allowing an instructor to assess how their course is going, while it is still in progress. You can relatively quickly and easily allow your students a platform to discuss their issues, provide advice, and make explicit their own personal experiences with your teaching style. By considering when and how you will provide feedback, and keeping in mind the “do’s” and “don’ts,” you will hopefully be able to provide a more engaging, more personalized experience for your class.

Further resources:

Early Course Evaluations (Duqusne University)

http://www.duq.edu/about/centers-and-institutes/center-for-teaching-excellence/teaching-and-learning/benefits-of-early-course-evaluations

PLUS/DELTA Assessment (Iowa State)

http://www.celt.iastate.edu/teaching-resources/document-your-teaching/plusdelta/

Information about the SGID Technique (University of Minnesota)

http://www1.umn.edu/ohr/teachlearn/consultations/sfc/

Student Evaluations (and Sample Forms) (Cornell)

http://www.cte.cornell.edu/teaching-ideas/designing-your-course/student-evaluations.html

MSU Midterm-Feedback mega site (has a host of links and advice)

http://fod.msu.edu/oir/mid-term-student-feedback

Bio

Steven Bengal is a doctoral student in social psychology at the Ohio State University. Steven's scholarly interests are in the interdisciplinary connections between attitudes and anchoring, as well as the role of knowledge and confidence in responses to extreme messages.