Providing Feedback to your Students

What to do with my SELT reports?

When you receive the report of your SELT surveys, the first thing you will do is examine the students' description of their experience of you and the course. This information is important to you as you determine how to improve student learning outcomes, the curriculum and assessment tasks.

As you read through student comments and look at the histograms presented in your report, you will be formulating ways in which improvements can be made to the current course.

As you plan changes to the teaching program, curriculum design or assessment tasks, you will need to inform students of your thinking so that they understand how their comments are taken into account.

What type of feedback should I give?

Respond to the students honestly and positively. This is easy when students have responded positively to the course and your teaching, but may require some thought when the responses have been critical. A good first step is to write down your responses to the survey report, set it aside for 24 hours and then revise your responses, if necessary, to ensure that you are responding to the underlying issues and not emotionally. The second step is to ask a colleague to read your responses. If a significant number of students have been critical of specific aspects of the course, acknowledge the issues and explain how it will be dealt with in the future. If the issues are beyond your control, don't blame others but describe to students the issues that you can influence and those you cannot.

Example 1: Students have responded positively to most questions , but have indicated that they did not perceive the presentation of the course stimulated their interest in learning. Their written comments did not indicate why this was the case.

Potential response: It was pleasing to see that our efforts in presenting this course were highly regarded by most of the class. We noted that a number of students felt their interest in student learning was not stimulated during the course. We would be interested in following up with these students how we might assist in changing aspects of the course that developed this particular issue. Your comments about xxx were very positive and we will continue to hold the small group essay writing workshops and assignment post mortem sessions.

Example 2: You were called in at the last moment to give a series of 6 lectures in an area you were not well prepared to teach. The lecture theatre was in need of an upgrade and the students were often talking and distracted. Students have given quite critical responses on many of the survey questions. Their written comments indicated that they had difficulty taking notes from the overheads slides, the course content appeared disorganised and that they had difficulty hearing the presentation as you often faced the whiteboard and wrote and spoke with your back to class.

Potential initial response: This is just typical of students who don't know or care how little time you have to prepare a course. I did my best in unfair circumstances and I am not to blame for last minute decisions about teaching arrangements. Students should listen to what the lecturer says and stop talking in class. It is not my fault if some students fail the exam because they did not listen. You've only got yourselves to blame when you fail the exam, which I'm setting right after I've written this.

A more reflective response: I think this was a difficult situation for both lecturers and students. Due to circumstances beyond the control of the School, I was asked, at the last minute, to present this course and was unable to spend any time reviewing the course content, as I would normally do. This has lead to a number of issues during the semester and many students in the class have commented on the apparent lack of cohesion between the components of the course. This has been discussed by the School Learning and Teaching Committee and the continuity between the course components will be highlighted next semester. Some students commented that it was difficult to hear the presentation because of the noise level in the class and the fact that I often spoke to the class while facing the whiteboard and writing. I will make a conscious effort to face the class when speaking and set aside specific time in class for questions so that the noise level is reduced. I would like to speak to any of you who had trouble with the clarity of my notes, so that I can address this area of my teaching as well.

How can I give feedback?

There are a number of methods you can use to respond to student comments.

• If you hold your SELT midway through your course, you can respond directly to student comments by discussing the main issues in your class. This can lead to improvements in teaching and learning in a short space of time.

• If you see the class again at a later time, provide feedback then. It will indicate to the students you respect their opinion and will let them know you are open to constructive feedback.

• The next time you teach, incorporate some of the feedback about you and your course into your course notes. This gives the students some idea of what to expect. If you have particular issues, like a tendency to talk to the whiteboard, ask the students to remind you to face the class so that can hear you. Let the students know that the last time you ran this course, students suggested that the tutorial sessions were not achieving their purpose and so you've changed the format, or if students in previous courses liked a particular facet of a course, say so.

• If you are using MyUni or other electronic course delivery tools to assist your teaching, you could email the students your feedback directly, post an announcement or set up a discussion group. The latter could be beneficial as it will allow for discussion of some of the points raised by the survey. Be sure to explain the rules about providing constructive feedback.

The course is finished. Why should I bother giving the students any feedback?

From the students' perspective, they have filled out SELT forms and there will be no returns on their time investment unless you, their lecturer, provide them. If students can see that their opinions are respected and on occasion acted upon, there is an increased chance they will approach the task of filling out SELTs with a more positive attitude, thus leading to more constructive outcomes from these surveys.

In many cases, you will be seeing these students again or your colleagues will, and so the students have a direct interest in seeing that your teaching and their learning work together, as effectively and enjoyably as possible. Students will understand your approach to teaching and your requirements of students if they are aware of previous SELT reports and your response to them.

The Centre for Learning and Professional Development (CLPD) recommends the following approach where possible.

• Look at the SELT report and extract the salient points from it. Try and identify trends, were a number of students have made a similar point. If you have trouble interpreting the results, seek assistance from the staff in Evaluations and Surveys, CLPD.
• Write down an initial response to the SELT report and leave it for at least a day.
• Review your response, show it to a colleague and ensure it addresses the salient comments by the students.
• Discuss the report and your responses with the class, if appropriate,.
• Post the histogram section of the SELT report and your feedback on MyUni, or an equivalent site. Use it as the basis for a discussion group, if appropriate.
• When teaching a course, make previous years SELT reports and feedback available to the students.