Student Experience of Learning & Teaching (SELT)

Survey Reference Group Approval is required
if a SELT falls outside the area of Learning and Teaching.
www.adelaide.edu.au/learning/staff/surveys/

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 following approach is recommended 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 Planning and Performance Reporting.
• 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.

Principle 1: Good practice encourages student-staff contact »

Lesson for online teaching: Teachers should provide clear guidelines for interaction with students.

Teachers wanted to be accessible to online students but were apprehensive about being overwhelmed with email messages or bulletin board postings. They feared that if they failed to respond quickly, students would feel ignored. To address this, we recommend that student expectations and staff concerns be mediated by developing guidelines for student–teacher interactions. These guidelines would do the following:

• Establish policies describing the types of communication that should take place over different channels. Examples are:
  • Do not send technical support questions to the teacher; contact the Departmental Computing Officer first or send them to the MyUni Help Desk.
  • The public discussion forum is to be used for all communications except grade-related questions.
• Set clear standards for teachers' timelines for responding to messages. Examples:
  • I will make every effort to respond to email within two days of receiving it.
  • I will respond to emails on Tuesdays and Fridays between three and five o'clock.

Principle 2: Good practice encourages cooperation among students »

Lesson for online teaching: Well-designed discussion assignments facilitate meaningful cooperation among students.

In our research, we found that teachers often required only 'participation' in the weekly class discussion forum. As a result, discussion often had no clear focus. For example, one course required each of four students in a group to summarise a reading chapter individually and to discuss as a group which summary should be submitted. The communication within the group was shallow. Because the postings were summaries of the same reading, there were no substantive differences to debate, so that discussions often focussed on who wrote the most eloquent summary.

At the CRLT, we have developed guidelines for creating effective asynchronous discussions, based on substantial experience with staff teaching online. In the study, we applied these guidelines as recommendations to encourage meaningful participation in asynchronous online discussions. We recommended the following:

Learners should be required to participate (and their grade should depend on participation).

• Discussion groups should remain small.
• Discussions should be focussed on a task.
• Tasks should always result in a product.
• Tasks should engage learners in the content.
• Learners should receive feedback on their discussions.
• Evaluation should be based on the quality of postings (and not the length or number).
• Teachers should post expectations for discussions.

Principle 3: Good practice encourages active learning »

Lesson for online teaching: Students should present course projects.

Projects are often an important part of face-to-face courses. Students learn valuable skills from presenting their projects and are often motivated to perform at a higher level. Students also learn a great deal from seeing and discussing their peers' work. While formal synchronous presentations may not be practical online, teachers can still provide opportunities for projects to be shared and discussed asynchronously.

Of the online courses we evaluated, only one required students to present their work to the class. In this course, students presented case study solutions via the class web site. The other students critiqued the solution and made further comments about the case. After all students had responded, the case presenter updated and reposted their solution, including new insights or conclusions gained from classmates. Only at the end of all presentations did the teacher provide an overall reaction to the cases and specifically comment about issues the class identified or failed to identify. In this way, students learned from one another as well as from the teacher.

Principle 4: Good practice gives prompt feedback »

Lesson for online teaching: Teachers need to provide two types of feedback: information feedback and acknowledgment feedback.

We found during the evaluation that there were two kinds of feedback provided by online teachers: 'information feedback' and 'acknowledgment feedback'.

Information feedback provides information or evaluation, such as an answer to a question, or an assignment grade and comments.

Acknowledgment feedback confirms that some event has occurred. For example, the teacher may send an email acknowledging that they have received a question or assignment and will respond soon.

We found that teachers gave prompt information feedback at the beginning of the semester, but as the semester progressed and teachers became busier, the frequency of responses decreased, and the response time increased. In some cases, students got feedback on postings after the discussion had already moved on to other topics.

Clearly, the ideal is for teachers to give detailed personal feedback to each student. However, when time constraints increase during the semester's busiest times, teachers can still give prompt feedback on discussion assignments by responding to the class as a whole instead of to each individual student. In this way, teachers can address patterns and trends in the discussion without being overwhelmed by the amount of feedback to be given.

Similarly, we found that teachers rarely provided acknowledgment feedback, generally doing so only when they were behind and wanted to inform students that assignments would be graded soon. Neglecting acknowledgment feedback in online courses is common, because such feedback involves purposeful effort. In a face-to-face course, acknowledgment feedback is usually implicit. Eye contact, for example, indicates that the teacher has heard a student's comments; seeing a completed assignment in the teacher's hands confirms receipt.

Principle 5: Good practice emphasises time on task »

Lesson for online teaching: Online courses need deadlines.

One course we evaluated allowed students to work at their own pace throughout the semester, without intermediate deadlines. The rationale was that many students needed flexibility because of full-time jobs. However, regularly distributed deadlines encourage students to spend time on tasks and help students with busy schedules avoid procrastination. They also provide a context for regular contact with the teacher and peers.

Principle 6: Good practice communicates high expectations »

Lesson for online teaching: Challenging tasks, sample cases and praise for quality work communicate high expectations.

Communicating high expectations for student performance is essential. One way for teachers to do this is to give challenging assignments. In the study, one teacher assigned tasks requiring students to apply theories to real-world situations rather than remember facts or concepts. This case-based approach involved real-world problems with authentic data gathered from real-world situations.

Another way to communicate high expectations is to provide examples or models for students to follow, along with comments explaining why the examples are good. One teacher provided examples of student work from a previous semester as models for current students and included comments to illustrate how the examples met her expectations. In another course, the teacher provided examples of the types of interactions she expected from the discussion forum. One example was an exemplary posting while the other two were examples of what not to do, highlighting trends from the past that she wanted students to avoid.

Finally, publicly praising exemplary work communicates high expectations. Teachers do this by calling attention to insightful or well-presented student postings.

Principle 7: Good practice respects diverse talents and ways of learning »

Lesson for online teaching: Allowing students to choose project topics incorporates diverse views into online courses.

In several of the courses we evaluated, students shaped their own coursework by choosing project topics according to a set of guidelines. One teacher gave a discussion assignment in which students researched, presented, and defended a current policy issue in the field. The teacher allowed students to research their own issue of interest, instead of assigning particular issues. As teachers give students a voice in selecting their own topics for course projects, they encourage students to express their own diverse points of view. Teachers can provide guidelines to help students select topics relevant to the course while still allowing students to share their unique perspectives.