Student Early-Term Feedback for Course-Enhancement Purposes

The early-term (weeks 4-6) student feedback process is formative in nature (for improvement purposes) and designed to give faculty a sense of how students are experiencing the learning environment. The process opens up dialogue about the learning process between students and faculty and affirms student responsibility in this process.

Considerations for conducting the student feedback process (pdf)
Sample feedback form (modifiable), VITAL (.docx, open in FireFox)
Sample open-ended instructional feedback questions (pdf)

Dr. Alexander Diaz-Lopez, Mathematics & Statistics, discusses his use of formative student feedback to achieve three goals: (1) student background, (2) early term course adjustments, (3) student metacognition regarding their study habits. Video (with permission)

Creating/distributing the feedback form and collecting the feedback online

Given the various course modalities, we suggest to use Forms in Office 365 to create the formative feedback form:

1. Copy and paste the questions from VITAL form into “Questions” in Forms
2. Set “Settings” (who can fill out this form)  to “anyone with link” to keep responses anonymous
3. Under "Settings" (options for responses) select "accept responses" to initiate the form and collect responses
4. Under “Settings” select “start date and time and end date and time” so that the feedback is completed in a timely fashion (suggest 24 hours) to share the themes from students’ responses with the class at the next class meeting (e.g., invite feedback on Tues, share feedback on Thu)
5. Under “Settings” create thank you message
6. Preview and/or test the form
7. Copy the link into an email message to send to your class list and/or to distribute via Announcements in Blackboard.
8. To view responses, select "Responses" and download them in excel

Video instructions on Use Microsoft Forms to Create Formative Feedback Form

If you are familiar with another survey tool that keeps the students’ responses anonymous, please feel free to use.