Leveraging Student Feedback for Course Revision

Feedback is one of the most valuable tools available to instructors, designers, and students. When students invest their time and creativity in an assignment, instructor feedback provides them an opportunity to know what they excelled in, as well as what still needs improvement. Authentic feedback between an instructor and student creates a conversation that is conducive to learning and growing. Similarly, after countless hours are spent designing a curriculum and developing a course--whether online, on-site, or a hybrid of the two--feedback provides instructors a path to continue improving the course for an impactful student experience. When we bring students into the conversation by requesting their feedback on specific elements of a course, we have the opportunity to showcase more diverse backgrounds and voices, employ current applications and content, and establish an environment that makes students feel valued and heard. This article explores how to create space for feedback, what to ask students, methods of receiving feedback, and how to apply student feedback toward course revisions.

Seek Feedback Intentionally

Requesting and sharing authentic, honest feedback involves vulnerability, so consider establishing a welcoming environment before soliciting feedback by leveraging specific goals to create student buy-in and plan your approach.

Identify your goals. 

Before soliciting student feedback, determine your goals for surveying students. Consider the following questions as you develop your own.

• What do you know you want to improve in your course?
• How well did you include diversity and inclusion in the images or learning materials of your course?
• Did you try something new and want feedback?
• What kind of comments do you anticipate from students?
• How often will this course run?
• What is the average enrollment size?
• What kinds of questions can help you locate weak or strong areas in your course?
• What kind of survey tool or assignment will help you collect feedback?
• Will you require students to provide feedback or make it optional (graded or ungraded)?

Once you have clear goals for gathering student feedback, you have a foundation on which you can begin to create an environment conducive to sharing ideas and opinions.

Create student buy-in. 

Tell students early on that you value their opinions because you want to improve the content and learning experience of the course based on their feedback. This could be mentioned in a welcome module as a video or page devoted to establishing how you plan to seek their feedback and possibly apply their experiences to revisions. Involving students in the conversation empowers them to make decisions and take ownership of the learning materials. If students know what is at stake and they understand the opportunities they have to make a direct impact on the course, it may influence how closely they view the learning materials. This in turn could also contribute to increasing their own learning retention.

Establish a clear structure. 

Plan how often you wish to seek input from students and strategically weave it into your course. Most online courses ask students to complete a course evaluation at the end of the course, but there are many opportunities and reasons to seek feedback earlier in the course as well.

• Preliminary feedback. If you would like to learn more about where students are starting in your course, consider surveying students in the first week of the course. This may be an opportunity to discern commonly preconceived notions that students may begin with.
• Post-module feedback. If you want students to provide feedback on specific content or activities, try implementing a survey or reflection when that content is fresh on their minds. It is easy to forget specific items in a course unless students are specifically asked to pause and reflect on those items.
• Mid-course feedback. If you’re looking for a general read on your course and not feedback on specific learning materials, then a survey or reflection activity halfway through the course may be an option to gather feedback from students.
• End of course feedback. By the time students complete a course, there are competing priorities and interests on their minds, which may mean that students typically share the best or worst parts of their learning experience. This feedback is valuable, but it may not be the best way to collect meaningful information; this will depend on your goals for feedback and what you are trying to achieve.
  

Leverage available resources

After determining the goals and cadence of your feedback collection, consider the types of questions you want to ask and the tool or method that would be best suited for gathering student feedback.

Ask the right questions. 

Plan your questions based on your goals, and keep in mind the kind of tool you plan to use. For example, will you employ open-ended questions that students can reflect on thoughtfully without topical restrictions, or do you want a specific opinion that a scale could reveal? There are multiple methods to solicit feedback from students, ranging from Likert scales to personal reflections or interviews, online forms, and group discussions. Regardless of the tool you use, how you frame and present questions will direct students' feedback.

• Open-ended questions. Avoid yes or no questions in isolation. Consider asking questions that begin with “how” and “what” so that students are prompted to list specific examples or point back to a specific module or resource. Open-ended questions could also be used to ask students to share resources or materials that they would recommend including in the course.
• Questionnaires. This is a type of survey that seeks feedback while also providing some parameters. This typically looks like a rating where students would select their provided response on a range from something like “not likely” to “very likely,” or some other psychometric scale. While this type of feedback will not point directly back to a specific example in the responses, framing the questions intentionally could help guide the student to a specific resource or module.

Select the right tool. 

Determining which tool you use to seek student feedback depends on your goals, the types of questions you want to employ, and other factors such as privacy, class size/scale, available resources, and personal preferences.

• Canvas Surveys are available in all Canvas courses and are excellent for blending different question types, grading options, and student anonymity. Because Canvas Surveys fall under Quizzes, you can mix up your question types to include multiple-choice (which can be used as a rating scale), open-ended questions, and other question types.
• Google Forms are easy to use for gathering all kinds of feedback because you can select from a variety of question types and customize the experience with graphics. As part of the G Suite, you can also export feedback into a Google Sheet for storage and review.
• Discussion Forums are not typically used to receive survey feedback, but this could be an option to gather ideas and opinions from students as they discuss prompts with their peers. Instead of asking questions in a vacuum, it could be interesting to see what they share with one another when multiple opinions and experiences are involved. Ultimately, each student comes to a discussion with different backgrounds and abilities, so some students may hesitate from sharing their honest opinions in a group.

Apply the feedback 

After you collect student feedback and begin to sort through the data, look for patterns. What was a common criticism or compliment? Which open-ended questions got lengthier or more passionate responses? Which kinds of questions did students skip? Be sure to review the feedback with an open mind, because it can be tough on the ego to receive negative feedback on something you invested time in, but the goal is to leverage the feedback to create a more authentic and engaging learning experience for students. Based on the feedback you receive, you decide how you want to incorporate revisions. Whether it’s a well-timed announcement or addition of a new textbook, determine the urgency and best method of implementing the changes, but consider letting your future students in on the process just like you did before: tell them where the ideas came from and how real students helped shape the course, just like they could.

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Post-Author:

Taylor O’Kelley, M.Ed., is an instructional designer with ASU Online and the Learning Experience and Student Success team, supporting large-scale initiatives of future learning spaces.