Facilitating Discussion-Based Feedback Sessions with Students
Why might you facilitate small-group discussions with students to gather feedback on teaching and learning?
Gathering feedback from students on teaching and learning is part of being a reflective, responsive, and inclusive educator. Students can contribute feedback on course logistics and instructional materials and can provide insight into attitudes, behaviors, and conceptual understanding of course content. Soliciting student perspectives can also help to address challenges or concerns within classrooms and academic programs. To advance inclusion and equity in teaching and learning, it is imperative that students have a voice and ownership over their learning experience.
There are many ways to gather feedback from students, and all forms of feedback collection have their own benefits and limitations. CTRL has resources on developing student feedback surveys, which are very useful to gather an overarching sense of students’ perspectives, and their anonymous nature can promote student honesty and comfort providing feedback. However, survey responses can be limited, and facilitating small-group feedback conversations with students offers opportunities to dig deeper into student perspectives.
Feedback discussions are more collaborative and community oriented; they provide an opportunity for participants to interact, share experiences, and build off each other’s ideas. Asking students to discuss aspects of their experience in groups can help to build rapport and community in your classroom or program as students engage in collaborative problem solving. They also allow for students to share nuance, reasoning, and explanation behind the opinions they might have already included in a survey. However, facilitated discussions are more time consuming to conduct than traditional surveys and take preparation to facilitate well. Surveys and discussions can also be used in conjunction, which we describe in more detail when discussing how to structure the session.
Who might be interested in leading feedback sessions with students?
There are many reasons to conduct feedback sessions with students, therefore faculty, staff, and administrators in various roles may find them useful.
Instructors new to AU can conduct feedback sessions with students to gain insight into student culture and expectations that may be unique to this institution. They can also gain feedback on aspects of their teaching that they may be trying for the first time.
Instructors teaching a new course or a redesigned course benefit from hearing students’ thoughts on how the course is working for them.
Instructors building a teaching portfolio can include a written summary of the feedback session as evidence of student assessment. Instructors might also highlight why they conducted the feedback session and describe how they will apply the students’ perspectives to improve their teaching.
Program directors can conduct feedback sessions with students to support the redesign or improvement of courses, curricula, or program requirements. Students can provide insights into the overall experience across various aspects of a degree program.
Anyone who wants feedback can benefit from conducting feedback sessions with students!
All educators benefit from ongoing reflection and iteration, and students can provide a fresh perspective. Keep in mind too that the world is constantly changing and so are our students. It is therefore prudent for you to consistently gather student insights on how things are working for them, what topics they’d like prioritized, and if there is anything that could be changed to support their learning.
When might you find it useful to conduct feedback sessions with students?
If you are gathering student feedback for the purpose of assessing and improving a course:
- Before the course: Ask students in a program to review and discuss syllabi or course plans for new or revised courses before they are launched.
- Beginning of semester: Facilitate small group conversations with students to help establish expectations and policies for the course.
- Middle of semester: Check in with students to assess how things are going at a time when you can act on the suggestions. Read more about collecting midsemester feedback.
- End of semester: Reflect on how the semester went, through small-group discussions with students. Reflecting on their experience in the course can also help students solidify their learning.
If you are gathering student feedback for the purpose of assessing and improving a program or curricula on a larger scale:
- Program Development: Ask students to review and discuss plans for new or revised programs before they are launched.
- Throughout the program: Check in with students to assess how the program is working for them at a time when you can act on the suggestions and make adjustments.
- When students are finishing a program: Ask students to reflect on their experience in a program, so that you can improve the program for future students. Doing so can also help students solidify what they have learned throughout the program.
How might you structure the feedback session?
Start by asking yourself: What are my goals? What am I interested in knowing? Then, decide on questions and a format based on those goals.
In terms of questions, if you are looking for generic feedback, ask students to consider what is working well and what could be improved. For instance, you might ask: What aspects of this course/program have been most impactful for your learning? What is one way this course/program could be improved to better support your learning? Please review the list of sample prompts for additional ideas.
If you are interested in knowing students’ thoughts about more specific aspects of the course or program, you might include more direct questions in addition to or instead of those generic prompts. For instance: What are your thoughts on the readings in this course? What topics are you interested in adding to the syllabus? How is the structure of our class sessions working for you? How can we increase opportunities for participation and interaction in class? You could even ask students what they are interested in discussing by posing: What aspects of the course are you most interested in talking about together as we work together to improve the course?
To help participants feel comfortable and prepared to share their ideas, you might consider breaking the conversation into stages: individual reflection, small group discussion, and whole group share out. A class larger than 5-8 students should be broken into smaller groups for part of the discussion. With a smaller group of students, the small group discussion might be replaced by a whole group share out.
With any size group, it is helpful to start with individual reflection, either in the form of giving them ample time to think to themselves or the chance to write down thoughts and ideas. Providing time for individual reflection creates a space for participants to sort through and feel more confident in their ideas, which makes it less likely that one or two participants will dominate the conversation. If you find that one or two voices are dominating the discussion, you might prompt more participation from others by asking, “Can I hear from someone who hasn’t spoken yet?”
If breaking students into small groups before a whole group discussion, ask groups to talk about themes and similarities between their individual reflections and then ask each group to prepare to share. During the whole group discussion, make time to clarify and unpack responses across the group. The same strategies you might apply to facilitating a productive in class discussion can be applied to lead a feedback session.
There are a variety of tools, paper and digital, that you can use to gather student insights or help students get their ideas down before formally beginning the small group discussions. You could ask students to fill out a brief individual survey, online or on paper, before beginning the discussion. You might also find sticky notes or poster paper helpful to gather student ideas and organize themes, if in person. Digital tools, such as Google Jamboard or Padlet, are useful for brainstorming before a conversation, and can be utilized in person, or online. Again, any tools you might use to facilitate an in-class discussion could be applied to leading a productive feedback session. Also, by asking participants to share their insights through other means prior to the discussion, you can pose more questions than you might have time to discuss out loud but will still have students’ insights in writing.
Depending on your role and the purpose of the feedback session, another aspect to consider is whether not it is appropriate for you to lead the feedback session yourself. For instance, if you are looking to gather feedback on your teaching, and you are concerned that students will not be completely open and honest with you, you might ask a colleague to facilitate the discussion for you and summarize students’ feedback anonymously. CTRL also offers midsemester course analysis services, during which a CTRL staff member leads a facilitated discussion with students and creates a report to share with you.
How can you make the feedback process valuable for them and you?
As mentioned at the start, gathering feedback from students on teaching and learning is part of being a reflective, responsive, and inclusive educator. In addition, providing feedback on teaching and learning is part of being a reflective, responsive, and engaged student. Meaningful, purposefully designed feedback sessions can provide a students and instructors with a greater sense of pride and confidence, while solidifying learning and growth.
Be transparent with students about the purpose of the feedback session – Why are you gathering student feedback? How will the information be used? What benefits will students get from sharing their insights? Be sure to close any feedback process by acknowledging students for their thoughtful ideas and thanking them for their insights and honesty.
