Week 12: Midterm Feedback

Image Credit: @gearedusa

Wow... week 12 is going by fast. This week I will be sharing some of the feedback I have received from my mid-term survey that I sent out to my students. It is an informal survey and is developed by me to give me some insight on what is helping or not helping students in the course. While this is not an official survey and is made in google forms, I think it provides me a lot of insight into student needs in my courses. Also, students will continue to respond to this survey for a few weeks, so I still expect more feedback from students.

Why Do I Do This?

There are many reasons I do this. The OTID program actually showed the importance of doing these. While it was not part of one of our classes, our program coordinator sends one of these surveys around midterm to get student feedback. When I first got one, I thought it was amazing. So, I started implementing them in my online courses. So, I got the idea from courses I have taken because I thought it was so helpful.

Image Credit: @impactCEE

I also think they are very informative. I find that they really give me feedback I would not otherwise receive. The students are able to tell me what helps them or what needs improvement during the semester and I can use that feedback to have positive changes while I still have the students in my course.

The standard course evaluations that schools give at the end of the term are just not as helpful. First, the questions usually to not elicit responses that are helpful to my instruction. For example, one question on the formal survey is.. "Would you recommend this instructor to other students?". I find this question is not very helpful. What can I actually take from that information. The answer is "yes" or "no". I usually get all "yes" responses with an occasional "no" every other year or so. But... that does not tell me anything really. I have no clue how to take that information and translate it into making improvements for instruction. Many questions in these surveys are like the one above. They seem like a popularity contest instead of providing useful feedback. Also, the surveys are given at the end of the term. Any issues the students do have are not reported to me until after the course ends. This means I cannot help the students during the time they need help. This is frustrating.

There is a lot of research supporting a mid-term feedback survey. While I do not plan on writing a supporting paper on this... as this is not the point of this practicum... I did want to mention that there is research out there that demonstrates many positives of offering this type of survey. The positives range from improving student learning during the semester, improving student learning in the long term, creating a better connection and relationship between the instructor and student, and so on.
So, I think it is important to offer students a chance to give feedback by asking questions that can give me real insight into how to really improve instruction and help students succeed. So, I developed a survey that can give me feedback to help.

Image Credit: @atomiclearning 

It is a very basic survey where I just ask some straight forward questions. A couple of these questions include...

1) What aspects of this course have been helpful to your learning and success?

2) What aspects of this course have been not so helpful to your learning and success?

3) Do you have any suggestions on things I (the instructor) can do to improve the course and your experience in the course?

They are mostly open-ended questions that ask the student to give me an open and honest response. The students can choose to answer the survey or not and can provide as much or little feedback that they want.

What Did I Learn? 

@johnnyfit

While this is an unofficial, informal survey, I have gathered some important feedback from my students who choose to respond. I like that a lot of the feedback can be addressed immediately, but there is always feedback that cannot be changed easily or even at all. No matter what the feedback, it really keeps me thinking and working toward better ways to improve instruction for students.

Feedback on Technology

When looking for trends in the feedback, I have noticed students seem to struggle with and are frustrated with technology. I fully understand this. I know that when asked to use new technology in courses, which are high stress anyway, it can create some frustration. I need to find more ways to help guide the students through the technology. I already provide written instructions and video instructions and demonstrations. I am trying to figure out what else I can add to the course/modules in order to help them troubleshoot and understand the technology better. Perhaps making some info-graphics instead of the typical instructions. Although, then I run into ADA issues with info-graphics. It is hard for me to gauge all of what is needed to help student navigate some of the technology stuff.

Feedback on Resources

The second common thing that was reported is that the students would like to have more videos. This actually surprises me. I have video lectures, short videos, animations, study videos, etc. I also pulled the data and noticed that some of the videos are infrequently watched. So, I am wondering to what extent students want more videos. Maybe they want more short videos on sub-topics. I have already identified that as a future goal. So, maybe I should make more short videos concentrating on individual topics instead of entire lectures.

Some Positives

There was also a lot of positive feedback, including feedback on my quick grading and feedback and a lot of comments on how fast I am at responding to messages/emails and grading assessments. That makes me feel good because I do really work hard at ensuring I answer students questions and provide fast, but quality feedback.

Hopefully I will continue to get responses and can update the information in next week's blog. Now... on to week 13.