Student Opinions of Instruction: How to Solicit Usable Feedback
You may have read your student opinion of instruction feedback from last semester as you prepared your syllabi for this semester. Because we are all piloting a new question set, we wanted to share some resources for parsing the “signal” of SOIs (that is, useful information) from the “noise” (that is, the less careful/helpful comments of students who were stressed at the end of last semester when they completed SOIs).
When reflecting on SOIs, we recommend any of the strategies below:
- Study evaluations with a trusted partner as Natascha Chtena (Education and Information Studies at UCLA) suggests.
- In our First Year @ Furman series, we routinely share these strategies for reviewing SOI feedback; this worksheet developed by the FDC may also help you sort “signal” from “noise”.
As you might imagine, helping students provide specific, actionable, and kind feedback at the end of the course actually begins the first week of class. Several recent studies document how opinion or evaluation instruments are flawed, however, we’ve collected a few strategy-rich resources for minimizing this phenomena below:
- While dated, this Faculty Focus article provides 3 steps to better course evaluations from the start of the semester.
- Share with students early in the semester how you have modified your course design based on specific, actionable student feedback from the previous semester.
- Terry, biologist at Cal State Dominguez Hills offers these specific strategies for creating a classroom environment that promotes meaningful feedback from students that translate across disciplines.
- This University of Iowa Teaching Center post helps instructors scaffold students’ constructive feedback formation.
Finally, one of the most common promising practices in teaching is to gather student feedback early/at the mid-term. Consider one of the following structures for this purpose:
- Share the Furman-piloted mid-term survey of teaching behaviors that incorporates student reflection on their own learning behaviors.
- Become part of the Open Classroom Network at Furman.
- Request a Small Group Instructional Feedback session or peer observation with the FDC team or one of our peer coaches.