9.4 Reflecting and acting on the feedback

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Once you’ve collected your mid-course feedback, we recommend you follow this 4-step process:

Step 1: Reflect on your own

Review your goals for conducting mid-course feedback. With these in mind (and with an openness to any other information that might surface), review, organize and reflect on the students’ comments. This form may be useful for guiding this process.

Step 2: Reflect with a colleague

We encourage you to discuss the feedback with a trusted colleague or someone from the teaching and learning centre (Vancouver CTLT or Okanagan CTL) to get an impartial point of view, particularly on anything that you have concerns about.

Step 3: Select your actionable changes and plan your response

Decide how you will respond to students’ feedback. What changes are you committed to making? What suggestions are you choosing not to respond to and why? Determine how you will communicate this to your students.

Step 4: Discuss with the students

It is essential to let students know you read and have reflected on the feedback they provided. Otherwise they will question the value of taking their time to provide feedback and may choose not to provide feedback in the future. We recommend the following:

  • Make time to respond to the student feedback within one week of gathering the feedback
  • Thank students for their comments and let them know you value their feedback
  • If you will not be making changes to the course, acknowledge the feedback and briefly explain the reasons for your choice
  • Use the opportunity to highlight what is working well and, as appropriate, to clarify your rationale for using certain teaching strategies
  • Encourage students to provide follow-up feedback (i.e., at your virtual office hours) and/or on the end-of-course evaluation