A group of University of British Columbia (UBC) teachers and students have tried and benefited from an initiative growing but seldom used at Carleton University— midterm course evaluations.
The trial group of 22 UBC faculty took course and teaching style feedback from students at midterm last semester, and the benefits, said Simon Bates, a UBC physics prof who helped organize the initiative, were obvious.
“[Students] get to offer feedback on how the course is going for them, at a time when there is still time to discuss and possibly address some of the various issues that may come up,” he said.
By opening dialogue and reducing distance from students, he said the “mid-flight” feedback also benefits professors, in a way end-of-term evaluations cannot.
“This is much more about a conversation between teaching staff and students, something that should be taken up as good practice, but not top-down mandated,” he said.
Carleton has a similar midterm evaluation program.
The Educational Development Centre (EDC) at Carleton supports teachers running a midterm evaluation by providing resources such as advice and surveys.
The centre can even run the evaluation completely, from giving out surveys to interpreting results.
“So that students won’t worry about, ‘OK, my professor will recognize my handwriting so I don’t want to be honest,’ ” said Andrew Barrett, EDC manager of instructional services.
Barrett said in the midterm evaluations, students do not ask for massive or structural changes, but subtle ones, such as clearer writing on the blackboard, louder lectures, and more peer interaction.
“It’s not the topics that you’re going to be covering [that students want changed], but the ways you cover those topics,” he said.
Despite the extensive support the EDC can offer, Barrett said about 30 professors make use of the complete service of conducting and evaluating a midterm course evaluation.
“We definitely want to grow this because in terms of the effort required, it’s pretty minimal,” he said. “The more faculty and instructors doing midterm feedback the better.”
The number of instructors using the centre more informally or who do midterm evaluations on their own is unknown.
Some students said they feel that more professors should be using midterm course evaluations.
“Right now, I have a number of courses that I am really unsatisfied with, but the problem is that I feel that if I voiced my criticisms, it may offend the professor and bias them against me,” said Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) journalism councillor Matthew Couto.
“I would definitely appreciate the opportunity to anonymously give feedback.”
“When you do an end-of-the-year evaluation, there’s no real incentive to provide thoughtful feedback because it won’t affect them directly, but rather it affects the quality of the course for future students,” he said. “So I find a lot of students kind of haphazardly fill out the form.”
“I’ve never had the opportunity to do a midterm evaluation, but I think it’s a great idea,” Couto said.
