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Best Practices

Mid-Course Surveys: Asking Students How Your Course is Working

By Amy Lane
February 27, 2020

Diverse group of students holding signs that say "survey".
Mid-course surveys capture formative feedback from students.

Mid-Course Surveys

Now that you are midway through a course, how would you say your course is going for students?  Do students have suggestions that could be incorporated to make it a better experience for current and future students? Rather than waiting until the end of the course for feedback, instructors can ask for formative feedback from students midway through a course.

Although it may be hard to ask for feedback, the fact that you are asking shows how much you care about your students. The mid-course feedback is a way for instructors and students to share and respond to formative feedback, which can improve a course that is in progress and have a positive impact on learning now and in the future.

How to Design Questions

It is easy to create and set up a mid-course survey in Canvas. The survey should be anonymous (Canvas has a setting for anonymous responses) and can be as short as three short answer questions.

To motive students to provide feedback, it is important to emphasize in the survey’s instructions that student feedback is valuable and will be used to improve current and future learning experiences. If you would like to ask students for formative feedback, please contact your instructional designer for help in setting up a survey in your course.

Example of formative feedback survey questions:

  1. What is one significant insight you have gained thus far in this course?
  2. What is one question about this course’s subjects that you still have?
  3. Please give your instructor one or two specific, practical suggestions of how they could help you improve your learning in this course.

Benefits of Conducting Mid-Course Surveys

There are several benefits to asking students for feedback in a mid-course survey:

  • By asking open-ended questions during the course, instructors can show that they are interested and open to students’ feedback, which can help motivate students.
  • The survey gathers the overall student perspective and gives the instructor time to respond to constructive feedback that can be implemented in the last half of the course.
  • The instructor can serve as a good role model for students by constructively responding to both positive and negative feedback.
  • Some students will be more receptive to formative feedback because they will see that the instructor is open to feedback as well.
  • Responding to feedback acknowledges the students that provided feedback and manages student expectations for the remainder of the course.
  • Instructors demonstrate that student feedback is valued with their willingness to incorporate recommended changes into the course and explain procedures or policies that may be confusing to students.

Tips for Follow-Up

After you ask students to complete the mid-course survey, it is important to respond to the formative feedback that you receive from students; we suggest that instructors respond by the end of the next week. Carefully consider what students say and look for themes that you can categorize their suggestions into for follow-up, such as:

  • Items you can change during the semester and when you will make the changes.
  • Suggestions that need to wait until the next time the course is revised because of the impact on the remaining instruction in the course.
  • The aspects that you either cannot or will not change because of instructional reasons (e.g. assessments).

Talk to your instructional designer about creating a mid-course survey today!

Resources

Faculty Spotlight: Rich Freese Interview

By Eric Peloza

Course revisions are an exciting time in the life cycle of a course. Faculty reflect upon the past offerings and look for ways to improve the student experience. I recently talked with Dr. Rich Freese (DMA) about how he approaches the revision process. Rich facilitates courses for our UW Independent Learning program and I’ve worked with him on a course revision (U660206 – Legendary Performers) that won the 2018 ADEIL College-level course award. For this issue of IDigest, we talk about Rich’s secret sauce for cooking up award-winning course revisions.

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Boundaries, Time, and Teaching Online

By Kristin Kowal
August 13, 2019

If you sometimes feel like your course is taking over your life, you’re not alone. Does this sound familiar:

Some weeks I spend way too much time on my online courses. Some weeks I do not spend enough time on my online courses. Please remember we all teach courses in >1 program, including our home campus responsibilities, with both in-person and online modalities!

No matter how prompt you are or how much time you dedicate as an instructor, there is never enough time to do everything you should or could. I try to find ways to automate things, but that even takes some time.

What I find difficult is that students, because they tend to work all hours all seven days, will ask questions 24/7. I feel like they expect me to be constantly monitoring my email. I like to take the evenings and weekends off (call me crazy), and that makes me feel guilty.

These are some of the answers I got to the question, “What do you find the most difficult about teaching online?” When instructional designers like myself meet with an instructor for the first time, it often goes like this:

A cartoon of an instructional designer and a faculty member having a conversation. The ID says "Okay, so the most important thing to remember is to be present in your course and give timely feedback." The instructor says, "Sounds good to me."
A well-intentioned ID encourages a new faculty member.

However, the well-intentioned ID might not imagine this reality during that conversation:

A cartoon of the instructor sleeping in his bed and thinking, "1:00 a.m. I'm having trouble both sleeping and being present in my online course"
Hopefully, this cartoon is a hilarious exaggeration and your online course isn’t keeping you up at night, but can you relate?

What’s the answer to this problem of no boundaries naturally existing in the “Anytime, Anywhere” model of online education? As a faculty-designer team, we cannot manufacture more time in the week. What can we do to achieve a healthy work-life balance in the online classroom?

Tips from a Journal Article

I looked for journal articles that applied to this issue, and I found one article from the Journal of Educators Online that I wanted to highlight called Creating Boundaries within the Ubiquitous Online Classroom1. If you have the time, I suggest reading the entire 21-page article. The authors briefly explain the theory of andragogy and the Community of Inquiry framework and then use them to support some time-saving strategies. They also highlight some efficiency tools that might save you time. If you don’t have time to read it, here is a summary of their tips and tricks. The article suggests setting three “priorities” as I illustrate below. (Click on an image to enlarge it.)

Heading: Priority 1: Engage With Students First. 3 Tips are listed: Post Early. Keep Ancedotal records, and practice backwards mapping. Heading: Priority 2: Produce Assets that Guide Students in Self-Management. Tip: Prepare Student guidance. Examples: Video guides; netiquette guide; prep announcements in advance; store repeatedly used materials Heading: Priority 3: Use time management strategies. Strategy 1: Strategies to reduce interruptions: Set up a physical workspace; establish work hours; communicate your plan. Strategy 2: Limit-Setting Strategies: plan work sessions and breaks; use timers' use limiting programs or apps

What UW Extended Campus Faculty-Designer Teams are Doing

After reading the research article, I realized we are already implementing these strategies in course design; this is why course design can seem like such a heavy lift upfront. Here are some of the strategies we as faculty-designer teams have used that help create a healthy work-life balance:

  • Creating boundaries through office hours
  • Using rubrics to grade more efficiently
  • Generating automatic feedback through quizzes, practice activities, etc.
  • Providing examples through multimedia or text to guide students when the instructor isn’t present
  • Using technologies like the Canvas Teacher App, Speedgrader, Turnitin for efficiency
  • Leveraging Peer Review and Group Assignments to save time (though the design time can be on the heavy end!)
  • Saving announcements/pre-writing announcements
  • Using and re-using just-in-time videos to clarify course concepts and provide help
  • Posting “weekly wrap up” announcements to provide a feeling of closure and continuity before moving on to the next unit
  • Finding opportunities during the course revision process to implement (e.g., cutting down on weekly discussions when one isn’t needed every week). 

We want to hear from you!

Even though I see evidence that faculty-designer teams are employing time-saving strategies to set boundaries and manage time, I realize it’s not a perfect solution; instructors still struggle with work related to their online courses creeping into their personal time. We would love to hear your stories and strategies you would like to share.

Comment on this post or email me at kristin.kowal@uwex.edu on what you’ve tried and learned about time management, setting boundaries, and teaching online!

1Hansen, B., & Gray, E. (2018). Creating Boundaries Within the Ubiquitous Online Classroom. Journal of Educators Online,15(3). doi:10.9743/jeo.2018.15.3.2

Faculty Symposium: Feedback, Discussions, Revisions, and Introduction Videos, Oh My!

By Kristin Kowal

UW Extended Campus held its third annual faculty symposium this year in Madison, Wisconsin, on June 3 and 4. The instructional design and multimedia teams had a blast presenting our breakout sessions. While we can’t re-create the warm, fuzzy feeling of mingling and sharing ideas with our faculty in a blog post, we can at least share our presentation materials.

Connections and Reflections: Feedback in Canvas

Session Overview

A group activity during the Connections and Reflections breakout

Instructional Designers Stephen Beers and Eric Peloza chose this topic because it was focused on tools in Canvas, and it was timely and relevant because many of our faculty are just getting started in Canvas; Stephen and Eric also chose the topic because they wanted to highlight how important and influential faculty are in the student experience.

It was great to hear faculty share their feedback and knowledge of Canvas and its tools. For example, one faculty member mentioned how they used the mute feature, which many faculty found beneficial. Overall it was a lot of fun, and I enjoyed the unique questions and topics that came out of each session. —Eric Peloza, Instructional Designer

 

Main Takeaways

I asked Eric Peloza about his main takeaways of the presentation. He highlighted four:

  1. Yes, feedback does matter. Our teams hear about the wonderful job our faculty do with feedback and how much students value feedback.
  2. The frequency and timing of feedback matters. This is a challenge for faculty and the good news is that Canvas has tools that faculty can leverage. Course level reports (course analytics) and announcements are great ways to reach or review the class as a whole. Templated feedback is another great way to help faculty. Using rubrics or automatic feedback in Canvas is a great way to improve the immediacy of feedback.
  3. Feedback is improved when it is specific. Canvas gives faculty options across all of assignment types in Canvas. This includes general feedback by way of text, video, or file upload, along with using specialized tools such as DocViewer in Canvas.
  4. Sometimes, questions work better than statements. This is best best leveraged in discussions. Interrogative questions can open up or keep discussion going among students. Again, Canvas can be leveraged here in facilitating feedback. Another great feature is that faculty can view all of a student’s submissions at once.

Download the Presentation Materials

You can download the Connections and Reflections: Feedback in Canvas Presentation here.

Part Deux: Discussion on the Rocks? Add a Twist of Fresh Alternatives!

Faculty connecting over how they use discussions in their courses in this group activity

Session Overview

My fellow instructional designer Laurie Berry and I presented on ways to add a little “zest” to online discussions by varying the discussion format. We reviewed the two most popular strategies that we presented at the symposium last year (you can get a full explanation of these strategies in my blog post “Five New Twists for Online Discussions”). Then, we presented three new “twists” faculty used in their course during the spring semester. There may have been some light dancing as well.

[The faculty] seemed interested in trying at least one, if not more, of the presented twist ideas. They also liked the format/layout of the presentation where it showed the traditional question and seeing how the twist can transform the question into something new without too much effort. I think they also liked seeing their colleagues’ testimonials of student engagement as well as tips and tricks for success. —Laurie Berry, Instructional Designer

Main Takeaways

Laurie summarized the key points of the presentation:

Providing the same type of discussion throughout the course multiple times can become repetitive and boring to students and faculty. Adding a twist to at least one discussion provides unique ways to get students to interact with course content and to engage with each other. Also, don’t be afraid to try something new or different with a discussion board activity.

Download the Presentation Materials

You can download the Part Deux: Discussion on the Rocks? Add a Twist of Fresh Alternatives Presentation here.

Extreme Course Makeovers

Ryan Martinez and Kristin Pierick lead a group activity in their Extreme Makeovers session.

Instructional designers Ryan Martinez and Kristine Pierick presented on a topic that nearly all instructors will encounter: how to prioritize course revision tasks. Ryan and Kristine used the metaphor of renovating a house and examples of how to pick specific projects to fit your time and budget to bring this presentation to life.

We had several faculty members express their own difficulties when revising their courses. We also shared several examples from faculty that were in the audience, so they were also able to elaborate more on our points, which was very helpful. All in all, it was also a good session because faculty were very willing to walk through some of their troubles and to also help some of the faculty who have not done a revision yet navigate some of their potential issues. —Ryan Martinez, Instructional Designer

Main Takeaways

Ryan summarized the main takeaways:

The main takeaways from our presentation are for faculty to be considerate of their time and resources when they are ready to revise a course, and reconcile what they can actually do in the time frame versus what they would like to do.

Download the Presentation Materials

You can download the Extreme Course Makeovers Presentation here.

Meet the Instructor: Building a Social Connection

Nick Meyer explains why “Meet the Instructor” videos are important.

Nick Meyer and Bryan Bortz from the media services team presented on how “Meet the Instructor” videos can build a social presence in your course. They demystified the process of working with media services to create a “Meet the Instructor” video. This session was recommended for faculty who are new to online learning and/or developing a course in the next one to two years.

Main Takeaways

The main objectives of the presentation were that faculty will:

  • Gain an understanding of the purpose and importance of “Meet the Instructor” Videos.
  • Acquire knowledge of the planning process.
  • Obtain tips and tricks for generating ideas for “Meet the Instructor” videos.
  • Gain an understanding of the filming process.

Download the Presentation Materials

You can download the Meet the Instructor: Building a Social Connection Presentation here.

You can view Nick and Bryan’s highlight reel of introduction videos here.

For even more examples of what the media services team can do, view their Faculty Showcase here.

Future Topics

Do you have an idea for a future topic that you want to see us present (or to present yourself)? Comment on this post or email me at kristin.kowal@uwex.edu!

Faculty Spotlight: Steve Dunn Interview

By Eric Peloza

Picture of Steve DunnThis June, I had the good fortune to sit down and talk with Steve Dunn regarding time management strategies in online courses. Steve is a veteran faculty member of UW Extended Campus’ Sustainable Management program with over six years of teaching experience. He is also partnering with the new Applied Biotechnology program. In our discussion, we covered the three phases of the course cycle: planning, development, and teaching. This blog post will discuss some of the key items that we spoke about for each phase. The main question that I asked Steve was, “If you look back at your years of experience in online education, what are some things that you would tell yourself when you first started?”

Planning

In the first part of our discussion, we talked about the shift to online education and how to approach planning for an online course. We know that the online education provides students and faculty an opportunity to view education from a different perspective. This requires a change in approach, working from the desired result and moving backwards (backwards design). In brief, backwards design is the course development process of starting with objectives, then building assessments based upon those objectives, and finishing development by locating resources that help students complete the assessments. In regard to using backwards design, Steve stated, “Beginning with the end in mind was the single hardest thing to wrap my mind around.” It is important to think ahead when planning your online course, and the backwards design process represents a shift from the traditional line of course design where development starts with a textbook and determines objectives last. If you are new to online education, it may take you some time to adjusting to backwards design, but it is a valuable process.

Along with backwards design, Steve mentioned that one of the biggest changes in the online education was working with a team on course design and development. He said that he was he was at first overwhelmed with the resources and wasn’t used to others asking questions about course design. His advice was to lean into the team approach and listen to the support. Steve said, “Recognize that you are on a team and that the team is trying to help you to make the courses so much better. Most professors are pretty busy with teaching, research, and their personal life, so the team is a big time saver.” Use your resources early and often, and don’t be afraid to reach out for advice! It can save a lot of time in development and when the course is active.

Recognize that you are on a team and that the team is trying to help you to make the courses so much better.

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