I wanted to be proactive in solving problems in my class that might occur during my semester. In addition, I wanted to know what my students were feeling about the course, what difficulties, if any, they were experiencing.
NYIT faculty member, School of Education

We generally don't get any feedback from our students until the end of the semester, when they may or may not complete the student evaluations of teaching. At that point, we are busy looking ahead to the following semester and don't always make time to reflect on what went well and what we might improve.

Why not ask the students early in the semester?

Early Semester Feedback is a simple way to solicit detailed information from your students about how your course is going. You can then use this information to make modifications to your course that will improve student learning. It has the added benefit of promoting student metacognition: reflecting on their learning process and how it might be improved.

There are many ways to gather this information. If you'd like assistance from the Center for Teaching and Learning, we can facilitate the process. (View the Early Semester Feedback questions.) CTL staff will assist you in setting up the survey, inviting the students to complete it, and analyzing the survey results to decide how to best respond to your students' needs. Sometimes your response might include making a change to an aspect of the course. Sometimes your response might be a conversation with the students in which you explain the rationale you used in designing the course, and how they might engage better with it.

Some guidelines:

Introduce the idea of the survey to your students in advance. One reason for the low response rate on end-of-semester student evaluations of teaching is that students don't believe their responses matter. Tell your students that you are doing this survey early in the semester specifically for the purpose of improving the course, and you will likely see high participation. (There's an added benefit that students who participate in an early-semester feedback process are more likely to participate in end-of-semester evaluations - and generally rank their professors more favorably.)

I obtained a lot of useful information that I cannot get from the end-semester course evaluation … It's only worth participating if you are actually willing to change what you're doing based on the students' responses.
NYIT faculty member, School of Engineering & Computing Sciences

Consider student responses carefully. Look at the positive responses first! It's always good to see what we're doing well. Then, look at their suggestions for improvement. Discard the outliers (e.g., this room is too hot!), and group the remainder into categories:

• ideas you can implement this semester (e.g., returning homework assignments more quickly);
• ideas you would have to implement in a subsequent semester (e.g., changing the grading structure of the course); and
• ideas that you will not change for pedagogical reasons (e.g., the number of exams).

Respond quickly to student feedback and thank them for their input. Give students a summary of the most frequent responses, so they know what their peers said, also. Plan on sharing 3–5 items with them, and make them a mix of positive comments and suggestions for improvement. Tell them what you will change in response to their comments. If there are other aspects of the course that you will change in a subsequent semester, tell the students why those things have to wait. If students requested something that just isn't feasible, explain why the structure you have developed is important to helping them learn. And finally, let students know what their classmates are doing that is helping them to learn, and encourage them to try something new as well.

I modified the course syllabus to address some of the issues raised by students. One example – more graded homework, fewer quizzes in class - NYIT faculty member, College of Arts and Sciences

Keep your tone positive. Thank the students for their comments and suggestions. Make it clear that you respect their role in making the course work, and invite them to be your partner in improving the course. For example, if students tell you that you talk too softly, ask them to remind you during class if your voice drops. It is important not to seem defensive, angry, or over-apologetic because these reactions can undermine students' perceived value of future evaluations.

Resources:

• Brown, M. J. (2008). Student perceptions of teaching evaluations. Journal of Instructional Psychology, 35(2), 177.
• Cohen, P. A. (1980). Effectiveness of student-rating feedback for improving college instruction: A meta-analysis of findings. Research in higher education, 13(4), 321–341.
• Davis, B. G. (2009). Tools for teaching. John Wiley & Sons.
• Hunt, N. (2012). Does Mid-Semester Feedback Make a Difference?. Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 3(2), 13–20.
• Pardo, A., Estevez-Ayres, I., Basanta-Val, P., & Fuentes-Lorenzo, D. (2011). Course quality improvement using mid-semester feedback. International Journal of Technology Enhanced Learning, 3(4), 366–376.
• Wickramasinghe, S. R., & Timpson, W. M. (2006). Mid-Semester student feedback enhances student learning. Education for Chemical Engineers, 1(1), 126–133.