I’ve been teaching for 11 years now in Higher Education, and a few years before that in training. It’s important to me that students enjoy my classes and find them useful. Inclusion is something I focus on, and it can be really difficult to ensure that all students have an optimal experience. Alongside that, I’m working on my own skills and energy levels. Feedback from students is crucial here. During every class I’m monitoring their expressions, body language and engagement in other ways.
However another simple way to get feedback is to just ask directly. I do this in a number of ways. In my current classes, I do an entry & exit digital quiz, where I ask 5-10 questions. These do not include specific ones about my teaching style, but I usually do this at the end of a module/quarter/term.
I used WooClap for the last course as the tech tool to do this, but not anonymously. Many students are more likely to be open and honest when the feedback is given without being linked to their name. So when the classes are larger, I often will give out a post it note and ask them to write a “tip” and a “top” which is a common way to give feedback in Dutch (primary/high) schools.
A “tip” is a point for improvement and a “top” is something they like. I just came across the feedback from a class I taught in 2022/23. I had given the students 2 post it notes – one orange and one pink. I asked them to write a tip and top about the course and its content on the pink and some personal feedback for me on the orange. Two students either didn’t understand this or just chose to do it differently….here is the feedback I received after a 12 week module from first year Bachelor students.
I used Chat GPT Pro to scan these and seperate into three lists:
TIPS (points of improvement)
- Slightly more time to prepare a case in class.
- Don’t know, you are great.
- Nothing actually.
- No tip, you are great.
- Maybe in the future you need to think about how to make people listen to you.
- Nice teacher, should go through more of the content on the book. Should also give examples of some types of questions to expect in the exams (I mean more questions than what is given).
- I liked your stories from life and how they connected to the lectures, but I did not like the talking from others.
TOPS (things they liked)
- Good teacher. Love the enthusiasm.
- I loved the lectures, you created an amazing atmosphere.
- Very nice teaching style, motivating to participate.
- So much energy and so happy.
- Love the charisma and the teaching style in general. Thank you for such a wonderful experience!
- You are amazing!
- Great teacher, very excited to teach, gives us chocolate
- I really liked lessons with you because you were always energetic and cheered us up.
- You are positive and nice; your teaching skills are good.
- The personal touch — it was always more interesting when it was related to personal background.
- Very lovely, easy to understand, supporting students — will miss you
NEUTRAL / MIXED FEEDBACK
Content: Not your fault, but I didn’t like this course.
Some of my own personal comments on these:
It’s lovely to continue to get the positive feedback, I regularly hear that the enthusiasm for my job comes across, I believe I’m in the right place teaching!
One note is that I was quite nervous about this course, as it was the first time I taught it and there was a lot of material to learn myself before the class. I read the text the week before the students did. The one student commenting on that I should go through more book content may have picked up on this – that I wasn’t super confident with the exact parts of the text (though I was with the general topic) – and also that the book was quite US focussed which I wasn’t comfortable with. So I tried to link to more local/European examples, which another student commented on (with my “life” experiences). Also, the format of the course, was that students were expected to read the textbook for homework and then it was not covered in class, unless there were specific questions.
Each week there was a “practice test” online with some examples of questions that could potentially be on the exam (or similar).
Interestingly enough, the “chocolate” was only in week 1 of the 12 weeks and a one off – it’s a trick I’ve used a few times to encourage participation to answer questions – but seems to have made an impact.
The main tip for improvement, coming from 2 students, I agree with. I do have a hard time with class control sometimes when some students talk repeatedly. Until now, I have never sent students out of the class for talking, as I do believe that sometimes students need to check in with each other, or like me, may be neurodivergent and simply find it hard to be quiet the whole 90 minutes. The talking can often come from specific students or be more generalised, and this is something I find super challenging to keep track of and address while also covering the class content. As these students pointed out though, it affects their experience so I need to keep working on this. It’s also common for 1st year students but does tend to improve as they mature.
Are you also a teacher/lecturer? Any of your own thoughts on asking for feedback most welcome in a comment below, or you can contact me on LinkedIn.
Renee
Zestee 