Obtaining selective student feedback
Feedback as a component of good teaching
In terms of its design and objective, the selective collection of student feedback differs clearly from the standardized, mandatory online course evaluation, which is usually carried out at the end of the semester using a standardized questionnaire.
Selective feedback is prepared individually by the teacher and is based on the questions that the teacher has for the students at that moment, for example:
- What remained unclear in today's course unit?
- How did the students like the new exercise?
- What questions do they have about the upcoming exam?
- What has been missing from the course so far, what came up short?
- Which topics should be addressed in the rest of the semester?
A collection of other possible questions for students can be found in this document.
For an introduction to the topic of feedback, we recommend the High Noon lecture "Feedbackmöglichkeiten in Lehrveranstaltungen" (2012, German), in which Werner Stangl presents some basic considerations and anecdotal evidence. You can find the theses to his lecture here.
Objectives of student feedback
If students are asked about their learning process, the feedback enables you as a teacher to adapt or repeat something, prepare something new or continue your course plan. Student feedback holds up a mirror to you and gives you an insight into the black box "students" - more in-depth and comprehensive than the non-verbal cues you generate by observing your students. In addition, by responding to their feedback, you involve students in the further development of your course design and teaching practices and thus support their experience of competence, which, according to the self-determination theory of Ryan & Deci (2000), promotes motivation .
In this High Noon lecture, Lisa Scheer (2017, German) talks about the functions of feedback and subsequently about specific instruments and feedback questions for your course setting:
Feedback tools
Feedback can be obtained in very different ways. When deciding on the format, take into account considerations such as anonymity, course climate, student feedback skills as well as your competencies and time resources. Some examples of different formats of feedback instruments:
- verbal: flashlight, group discussion, muddiest point
- written: written review, word cloud, start-stop-continue, muddiest point, one-minute paper, 5-finger feedback
- oral & written: Teaching Analysis Poll
- visual: position line, target
Digital feedback
You can also receive and give feedback digitally on a variety of occasions. Advantages of digital feedback:
- individual: digital tools enable confidential feedback (particularly helpful for criticism)
- practical and time-saving: online tools can make it easier to give and analyze feedback (e.g. through the comment function)
Moodle activities such as forum, feedback or voting are particularly suitable for the asynchronous phases of the course in order to receive feedback from students digitally.
In face-to-face teaching, on the other hand, audience response systems such as Particify are an excellent application.
Further helpful information and inspiration can be found, for example, in the e-Campus Use Cases Obtaining digital feedback in the face-to-face unit and Obtaining digital feedback in online teaching.
