Student Feedback

Reflective teaching practice supports continuous growth with the goal of improving student learning. It is therefore very important to collect students’ perceptions on what they are hearing, seeing, doing, and reacting to during classes and include that information in reflection and planning for future growth. 

End of term course evaluations administered through the faculty, school or department provide one source of formal student feedback. These often suffer from low return rates with very binary divisions in responders: those who did well and want to express their appreciation, and those who did not do well and wish to express their anger. This, along with the very general nature of the questions and the timing of the feedback limits their usage for informing growth. (Please note: there is always value in going through all feedback with a critical eye. The Teaching Centre recognizes that it can be difficult/emotional/frustrating to go through these in an objective way and glean useful feedback for growth. We are always willing to offer a supportive, non-judgmental perspective to assist with this).

There are some methods for collecting student feedback that are more timely, more instructor focused and  generally have greater value. Check out this page for info on Student Informal Feedback and Midterm Evaluations.