Time to Check In

It’s hard to believe that classes began a month ago, but somehow midterm is already on the horizon, and the deadline to drop a class is coming up in two weeks. By this point in the semester, both you and your students need some feedback on their learning.

Students are justifiably anxious when they don’t know how they’re doing in a class, and they usually think of graded work as essential feedback on their progress. Hopefully, in addition to quizzes, homework, and exercises, your students have already taken at least one exam, or submitted a major assignment, so they know whether they’re on the right track.

While grades provide some data, they’re not enough to help students improve their work or the strategies they are using to learn. Students also need opportunities to apply, test, and build on their knowledge, within a cycle of clear goals, practice, and feedback. Timely and targeted feedback on their work helps them to make educated decisions about where to direct their effort and how to study, and analyzing their work can help you decide whether and how to adjust your teaching strategies or plans for the remainder of the term.

There are a variety of quick and effective ways to create opportunities for you and students to get feedback on their progress: Class-wide discussion of the learning goals, formative assessments, clicker questions, and minute papers are all great strategies. You can also try mid-course evaluations (more examples here) or other methods of eliciting feedback from students on how the course is going for them. When we respond to mid-course evaluations by making adjustments that help students learn, we can improve our end-of-term evaluations as well.