Short on time. Try this informal and easy technique to get a read on your students' experience in the course. Learn what works, what's okay, and what support they would like.
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If you're short on time, read How to Give Your Students Better Feedback With Technology Advice Guide from The Chronicle of Higher Education! The article explores when and why to audio or video or text for feedback. Don't miss the 4 Key Qualities of Good Feedback section.
How to Give Feedback offers two strategies when you're short on time! Scroll down for Look for Common Errors and Prioritize Feedback (from MIT's Teaching + Learning Lab)
Goal-referenced: Feedback leads student to reach a goal.; Tangible and transparent: The desired results should be clear. Actionable and User-friendly: Students should know what to do with feedback. Timely: It shouldn't take too long for them to get feedback. Ongoing: Students get lots of opportunities to improve. Consistent: Feedback needs to be stable, accurate and trustworthy.
Mid-Semester feedback gives students to opportunity to share their concerns, and allows you time to make appropriate changes to the course. These surveys are not the same as the final course evaluations given by the school or department. They are for you to learn more about your students and their learning experience with you. The focus is on your teaching presence, the course delivery & design, and how engaged the students feel. And, any instructor can easily use their Blackboard course to conduct an online survey, even for face-to-face courses.
(Brennan & Williams, 2004, p.11)
Just like writing an exam, it's important to ask the right questions. Instructors should think through their past teaching experiences and consider which areas they want to examine and which areas they would like to improve. Select two to three topics to keep the survey reasonably brief and encourage completion.
The surveys may include questions such as:
Another well-known approach is the Stop, Start, Continue survey method. It's fast and easy to conduct. There are three open-ended questions, which often yield very rich information.
Gathering Feedback from Students article includes sample forms for the classroom from Vanderbilt University
Large set of sample mid-semester feedback surveys includes items from Princeton, Middle Tennessee State University, Otis College of Art, UC Berkeley, Brown, Carnegie Mellon, NYU, Washington University, and Humboldt State University.
Mid-Semester Feedback article from University of Texas, Austin's Faculty Innovation Center. This article discusses the "why" of collecting student feedback during the semester and the "how", which includes selecting the right survey, administering it, and analyzing the results.
Student questionnaire template and a list of question ideas from The McGraw Center for Teaching & Learning at Princeton University
Student Assessment of Their Learning Gains
This free online tool is based on work supported by a National Science Foundation grant. You can learn more about the validity, the privacy policy, and how to use the tool by visiting the website.
Use of the 'Stop, Start, Continue' Method journal article in Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education
Three Ways to Use Student Feedback to Improve Your Course from Faculty Focus. Give surveys, initiate a small group instructional feedback session (SGIF), or conduct a focus group.
Brennan, J. and Williams, R. (2004), Collecting and using student feedback: A guide to good practice. Retrieved from https://www.heacademy.ac.uk/system/files/id352_collecting_and_using_student_feedback_a_guide_to_good_practice.pdf.