Mid-Term evaluations of teaching are an informal opportunity for instructors to solicit and students to give feedback partway through a course delivery cycle, to facilitate dialogue about why the course is designed and delivered the way it is, and to collect and respond to student viewpoints about various aspects of the course.
Why do them?
They offer the potential for substantial benefits to both instructors and students: it engages both in a dialogue about aspects of the course, can significantly reduce the ‘distance’ between cohort and instructors and provides an opportunity to explain why certain aspects of the course are designed in a particular way, or to make changes in real-time, so as to impact the current cohort taking the course. Published studies have shown students are more likely to take formal teaching evaluations more seriously if they see that their input matters.
What they are NOT
They are not intended to be part of a formal evaluation process of teaching (unlike the end of course evaluations). They are not designed to (solely) provide feedback on a midterm exam. They are not to be seen as an opportunity to complain about courses, rather to provide balanced, constructive feedback to the instructor(s).
When to do them
At a suitable time (determined by the instructor), around the midpoint of the course. We suggest no later than week 7 so as to give clear water between this formative evaluation and the end of course Student Evaluation of Teaching process.
How to do them?
This is not intended as a top-down, prescriptive recipe. Instead, instructors are free to use whatever evaluation material, data collection methods and reporting structures to make use of feedback gathered. We have collated several examples of questions used at UBC and elsewhere (see section below). Some instructors may choose to evaluate particular aspects of a course; to collect data, some may use ‘minute papers’ in class, some clicker questions. Different questions sets may be asked as appropriate to different courses/disciplines. In general, less is more: don’t ask more than 5 questions unless you really need to. It is useful to include questions that prompt students to think how they can improve their own learning on the course, as well as their perspective on things you could do, or are doing, as an instructor.
Research has shown that mid-term evaluations are most valuable to both instructors and students when there is a two way dialogue from things brought to light in the evaluations. Share the results of the evaluation, including areas indicated as strengths and areas that need improvement, announcing changes that you intend to make while also providing rationale for teaching style, pedagogy and practicalities you do not intend to change.
What was learned from the pilot?
Please read the brief report from the 2012-13 pilot. A key outcome was to find a way to give faculty access to a bank of questions that could be easily re-purposed our adapted to suit their particular requirements, thus reducing the activation barrier to implementation.
How can I access good questions?
To address this, we have developed a lightweight online tool that allows faculty to select, modify and organize questions from a bank of those created by others using the tool. Questionnaires can quickly be built, saved and exported as pdf documents for use in class. You can access the tool using your CWL login, and also a resource page explaining its key features.
Can I do this online?
Not yet. There are plans to integrate the tool that we have created within Connect for faculty who prefer to collect this data online. In the meantime, please provide feedback on the utility of the tool at the above links.
