Incorporate these common student suggestions from the Teaching Innovation Team’s Midterm Feedback Service to your spring courses.

As we wrap up the fall semester, you may be reflecting on ways to successfully modify your courses for spring. Student feedback can offer instructive guidance in making course revisions. The Teaching Innovation Team, part of the Division of Online and Strategic Learning, offers a Midterm Feedback service to help facilitate student feedback with your students. During weeks four through ten of each semester, our team partners with instructors to collect confidential, valuable feedback from their students—information that can later be applied to the latter half of the term and a future iteration of the course.  This blog summarizes the most common student feedback from our Midterm Feedback service, from instructor-specific praise to requesting more iterations of a particular activity.  

Student Suggestion One: Slow Down Vocal Delivery In-Class 

I am a fast talker. When I’m teaching, I often have students ask me to repeat what I’ve said—or give me blank stares that encourage me to do so. As instructors, we are content experts. It can be easy to breeze through topics, especially if they seem straightforward. However, for many of our students, it is their first time hearing the information. When instructors move too quickly, the learners can miss the full extent of the content. To remedy this in my classroom, I slow down my vocal delivery during lectures, assignment instructions, or in-class activities. I also incorporate intentional pauses. These pauses slow my speaking rate while creating natural stopping points for students’ questions.  

Student Suggestion Two: Create Direct Connections from Course Material to the Real World 

One popular feedback item is students requesting real-world applications. Bridging the gap between your course’s theory and your students’ practice in the real world enhances their learning experience. As one instructive example, a professor simulated mock interviews for an in-class activity, preparing her students to later participate in a job fair on campus. Even if faculty cannot restructure their classes this far into the semester, they can reference how their content will apply after the semester ends. These tangible examples help prepare students for lives and careers beyond the course.  

Student Suggestion Three: Stay Engaged Throughout the Semester 

Student praise for instructors often revolves around their engagement with the course. Instructors talking about their own experiences with the course content, showing excitement for the course, or even disclosing previous mistakes shows students they care about the course, and the students’ experience in it. One professor, for instance, frequently tells stories of teaching methods that did not work during her years of teaching in K-12. Her students love this, as it reinforces that she has tried—and failed at—a variety of teaching methods. While it is understandable for faculty to be less excited about a course than they were at the beginning of the semester, it is important for instructors to model the enthusiasm they hope their students will bring to the course.     

Student Suggestion Four: Facilitate More In-Class Discussions 

Another engagement strategy students value is large group discussions. Multiple students mentioned they enjoy sharing their thoughts on course topics and appreciate hearing their peers’ differing perspectives. One student even noted their contributions to their course’s discussions helped them develop good communication practices for their other courses at Ball State. 

Student Suggestion Five: Add More Small-Group Activities 

Students who weren’t quite ready or comfortable engaging in front of the entire class expressed a desire for more small-group activities in their courses. In these small groups, students may feel more comfortable sharing their opinions or asking questions. Additionally, small-group activities allow the instructor to engage with students in lower pressure situations. In a larger course, students mentioned speaking in front of the entire group can be intimidating; they preferred the peer and instructor feedback given in small-group settings.  

Conclusion 

Even if you missed this semester’s Midterm Feedback service, there is still time to make adjustments to your course or future iterations of it. This blog summarizes the most common student feedback gathered from the Teaching Innovation Team, but I encourage you to find ways to collect and incorporate student feedback in your courses. For example, you could ask students in an anonymous Canvas survey how you as the instructor can better support students’ learning, and how the students can better support their own learning.   

Which of these suggestions from students could you implement into your course? 

Reference 

Ball State University. “Midterm Feedback.” Accessed October 22, 2024. https://www.bsu.edu/about/administrativeoffices/online-and-strategic-learning/faculty-support/professional-development/midterm-feedback#accordion_follow-upclassdiscussion