What is Feedback?
Feedback is a tool that was created to allow Instructors to receive formative feedback from students throughout the semester. Instructors have the ability to start a Feedback session in which their students will answer six questions related to high impact teaching practices and a single question that gauges the students overall perception of if they understood the material that was covered.
Feedback session results allow Instructors to identify trends in student perceptions of their instruction and make improvements as soon as the next class.
Video overview
How were the Feedback questions chosen?
The questions were developed based on research and experience of our IDEA partners. Feedback questions are based on IDEA’s Teaching Essential form which was designed to provide formative feedback about teaching methods highly correlated with instructor and course excellence.
How does an Instructor start a Feedback session?
Instructors can log into Evaluate and click on the "Feedback" button in the navigation menu.
Once on the Feedback page, an Instructor can click on the "Start" button for the section they would like to start the Feedback session for. Sessions will be open for two hours after they have been started. An Instructor can stop a session early if they would like. After clicking on the "Start" button it will change to a "Stop" button that can be clicked anytime within the two hour time period.
How do students take a Feedback session?
After an Instructor has started a session they can provide the Student Link to the students in their section and student can log in from their smartphone tablet or computer. This link is displayed on the Feedback page. Students will have two hours or until the Instructor closes the session to complete it. The Student Link will be the same for all of the Feedback sessions that are administered at an Institution. When students log in they will only see Feedback sessions associated with their enrollment.
Can Instructors add or edit Feedback questions?
Instructors cannot add or edit questions. Feedback session questions are standard and were designed in order to provide developmental resources of the content. Institutions who have the Anthology Baseline product may create their own questions for measuring learning rather than teaching, using the Student Response System(SRS) tool.
Are the Feedback sessions anonymous?
Feedback results are not anonymous. Students and their responses are intentionally identified so that an Instructor can connect with their students to resolve any lingering questions and to reach out to students who responded that they did not understand the material.
Who can see the Feedback session results?
Only the Instructor of the section can see the results of a Feedback session they have conducted. Admins and Report Administrators will not be able to view the results unless the Instructor forwards the daily digest email report to external stakeholders or prints the web reports using the browser’s print option.
What results are available to the Instructor?
- Email Digest
Once a Feedback session closes an email digest will be sent to the Instructor. The Instructor can click on "View Sessions Details" and they can log in and be directed to the full report. - Session Details
The session details page gives the Instructor more detail about the results of the session including how results have changed from the last Feedback session as well as the students and their associated responses. - Summary Results
Results are also available in a longitudinal view. From this view, Instructors can see how they are trending on each question over time. For each question, Instructors can click on "Suggestions" to be directed to resources that will help them improve on that teaching method.
Which Instructors should use Feedback?
The Feedback tool is recommended for any Instructor who directly engages with students. There are a few specific groups on campus that may be interested in learning about their teaching and who would most immediately benefit from using Feedback.
Adjuncts and New Professors
New employees teaching new classes at a new campus can use all the help we can give them. Feedback provides specific information about students perception of teaching practices, as well as data that helps them know when they need to check in with students.
Faculty in Educational Departments/Colleges
Who better to use data about teaching methods than the Education Faculty? It is an easy to use and the formative tool that can reinforce good teaching methodologies while the future teachers of the world are still students.
Faculty working on tenure portfolios
Anyone on a tenure-track knows the words teaching, research, and service! Use Feedback reports for clear and useful evidence of good teaching for the tenure portfolio.
Faculty who want to learn something new about an old class
Sometimes things just feel old and stale. Is it the content or could it be our teaching? Feedback can help any faculty member make informed decisions about changes they want to make to their courses.
Teachers teaching brand new courses or units
New content or classroom activities? Don’t let teaching methods get in the way of the curriculum. Using Feedback when you're trying something new can help you clearly determine what is going right and what could use some adjusting.
Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL)
Feedback provides data that can be used for Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) projects in any department.