Early Feedback

End of term student evaluations can provide you with a lot of information for the next time you teach the class.  However, collecting feedback early in the term gives you the opportunity to address issues early, when changes can still be made.  This can be a very effective way to improve student learning in your class right now as well as develop your teaching overall.

Here are a few thoughts on how you might proceed:

Early feedback does not need to take a lot of time.  Five or ten minutes at the end of class may be all that is needed.

Keep the feedback anonymous and tell your students why you are doing it.  Blackboard allows you to give anonymous surveys, so that may be one option if you are worried about handwriting.

Ask only questions you actually want the answer to.  Try to be specific and focus on the experience of learning.  For example, I'd recommend asking questions like: 

What does the instructor do that helps you learn in this class?
What is the biggest challenge when trying to learn in class?  When studying for this class at other times?
What do you think would help you learn in this class?

and not:

What do you like about this class?
What don't you like about this class?
What do you think should be changed?

The first set of questions invite the students to think about the class in terms of their learning, and may provide a more constructive information. 

Another good set of questions might be:

Pace:   too fast, about right, too slow

Level:   too high, about right, too low

This is tricky, of course, because you might not want to change the level or pace of the course if the students think the course is too high a level or too fast, especially if this pace or level has worked in the past.  But, you may be able to address their concerns in other ways.  For example, suppose you the majority of the students think class moves too fast.  Perhaps you can come up with additional ways to support the students in rising to this level, such as providing prereadings or outlines to help them prepare for class. You may discuss the pacing with them and zero in on why or where they are having trouble: maybe there are terms they don't know that you expect them to know, maybe they are having trouble keeping up writing their own notes.  Many of these things have easy solutions that can be implemented quickly.  You may, of course, find out that the majority of the students find the pacing and level to be about right.  This is helpful information for the class to know so those having trouble are aware they should seek out additional help.

Here are a few links you might find helpful:

• Informal Early Feedback - The Center for Teaching Excellence at The University of Illinios, Urbaba-Champaign has some advice on how to obtain feedback and what to do with it once you have it.  They also have a bank of questions you might consider using on early feedback forms.
  
• Grade Your Teaching with Early Feedback - The Center for Instructional Excellence at Purdue University also has some advice on obtaining and using early feedback and they have a variety of sample feedback forms.
  
• 101 Things You Can Do in the First Three Weeks of Class - A list by Joyce Povlacs Lunde provides some other ideas for early in the term.