The Center for Transformative Teaching will host a workshop, “Leveraging Student Feedback,” at 12:30 p.m. Sept. 29 via Zoom. Registration is required.

Gathering student feedback can be used to improve teaching and may be more important than ever right now. Students and instructors face immense challenges this semester.

In addition to concerns about quarantine, illness, financial hardship and anxiety, both students and instructors are wrestling with new course delivery formats. These issues make teaching difficult and distract students from learning.

One way faculty can improve both the teaching and learning experience in small and perhaps large ways is by making use of student feedback and adapting the course in response. Lecturer and instructional designer Sydney Brown discovered the freshmen students in her design course preferred a late night deadline over a morning one.

“I thought I was doing them a favor by making assignments due at 8 a.m. instead of midnight. However, my students said they preferred the 11:59 p.m. deadline and sure enough, late submissions were reduced with the change,” she said.

In the College of Business, associate professor of practice Amanda Gonzales adjusted course activities to emphasize her students’ personal learning goals for the semester. She also enhanced students’ remote learning experiences by fostering an ongoing dialogue with students.

Mid-semester feedback, preferably before significant graded assignments or exams, can help identify problem areas that might adding to student difficulties and instructor workload. There are many ways to get feedback like this and the upcoming workshop, “Leveraging Student Feedback: The Power of Formative Surveys,” focuses on the attributes, logistics, and effective use of formative student surveys. Administering these surveys is like taking a course’s pulse and should be done early and often. Responses can help instructors understand how instruction is resonating with students and inform appropriate adjustments to teaching methods.

Participants will learn how to create effective and useful surveys in Canvas and will be given time to work on building their own formative surveys, while receiving help from instructional designers. Methods of soliciting student feedback will be discussed, and several examples will be provided of how instructors have responded to student feedback in order to improve their courses.

Instructors interested in joining the session should register by Sept. 28. Registrants will be provided Zoom room access via email prior to the session.