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Online pedagogy

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

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

Designing for Self-Directed, Self-Paced Learners

BLE 200 Homepage
Homepage sample illustrating the standardized layout and support resources that contribute to student success.

At CEOEL, we are starting to work on developing a new degree for UW System’s Flexible Option. Before embarking on this new journey, I wanted to take some time to reflect on the last one. I had the opportunity to work with a great group of faculty and instructional designers this past year while developing UW–Extension’s first degree, a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration (BSBA). In this post, I’ll highlight just a few ways that this degree incorporates research-based recommendations for designing and delivering learning experiences to self-directed, self-paced learners. These practices address factors such as learner characteristics, assessment methods, and presentation of materials.

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OERs: A Curator’s Perspective

It’s a busy time around here! With the fall semester starting and new competency-based program development in full swing, everyone is working hard to deliver the best learning experiences possible. Back-to-school season is exciting but challenging for learners, instructors, and those of us in supporting roles. Part of that hard work is curating learning resources—open educational resources (OERs). Today’s post will explore how some of our faculty are approaching OERs.OER logo

In the midst of all this preparation, I’ve recently heard conversations about how important thoughtfully curated learning resources are to a student’s success, and it occurred to me it might be interesting to look back at the transcript of a conversation I had with Kim Kostka about using OERs. Kim and her colleagues Tom Neal and Tony Millevolte assembled and annotated an array of OERs for one of our Flexible Option competency sets.

Here are some of the highlights from my conversation with Kim.

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Course Momentum

In this post, read about an online course that has great pacing and momentum to keep students engaged until the end. What follows is a description of five momentum-building activities from the course, as well as an interview with the instructor. Erin Ratelis developed and currently teaches HWM 335: The Worksite Health Environment.

Five Activities That Build Momentum in HWM 335

1. Photographs on the Discussion Board

Momentum buliders: Photographs of a road and a description of the photographs written by the instructor
Discussion Board Photo Activity (Author: Erin Ratelis)

What it is: Students take photographs of their health environment and post them to the discussion board in the first activity of the course. Erin shares what her environment looks like as well.

What I love about it: This activity does double-duty: an intro to the health environment and a social connector. By sharing their living environments in the context of the course, students are bridging the social gap that often comes with asynchronous online learning. This builds momentum by starting the course off with an activity that is exciting to students and inspires them to learn more in the weeks to come.

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2 Reasons to Create New Media For Your Online Course

screenshot of a video created for HWM 350
The instructor of HWM 350 explaining why research is important in a unit introduction video.

So, you’re putting your online course together and you realize that there are already videos on YouTube for all the topics you’re covering. You say to yourself, “Why even take the time to create my own videos and reinvent the wheel? I could save so much time and effort! I’d just be a talking head, anyway.” Before you make your decision, consider the following two reasons why it may be a good idea to create at least some of your own media.

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