Collecting feedback on your teaching is an important way to learn about students’ experiences in your courses, both in terms of what might be working well and where there might be room for instructional improvement.

Student Experiences Surveys

You are likely already familiar with the summative student experience surveys that are administered to students at the end of each course. These evaluations have predetermined questions about the students’ learning experience and other aspects of the course.

In an effort to enhance the quality of feedback yielded from Student Experience Surveys, The Office of Institutional Research & Analysis (IRA) has prepared a Feedback Guidance page that provides helpful tips that instructors can share with their students regarding how to complete the survey in a reflective and meaningful way.

Formative Feedback

While summative course evaluations provide the opportunity for students to comment on their experience in the course after its completion, collecting formative feedback midway through the course (or the first term, if it is a yearlong course) is an excellent way to gauge students’ opinions about the course while you still have time to implement suggested changes, as appropriate.

Please note that student feedback should always be collected anonymously.

Do-it-Yourself (DIY), Teaching Observation or Teaching Refinement

The MacPherson Institute offers a series of supports, services, and resources dedicated to supporting instructors seeking formative feedback. For those who would like to collect the feedback themselves, we have a series of Do-it-Yourself (DIY) step-by-step guides. For those who would like more hands-on support, they can request a Teaching Observation or Teaching Refinement.

Regardless of which approach you use to collect feedback, it is essential that you follow up with your students afterwards, indicating what you learned from the feedback, what you are able to change, what you are unable to change, and, if applicable, what you will not change. You do not need to share every piece of feedback but providing an overall summary of students’ comments reinforces that you care about their learning experience and allows you to explain or contextualize some of your instructional choices.

If you’d like to speak to an Educational Developer about what you’ve learned from your feedback, or any changes you might make to your course or teaching, please feel free to reach out to your Faculty’s Liaison in the MacPherson Institute – there is a dedicated Educational Developer assigned to each of the six Faculties, as well as one assigned to Arts & Science.