One of the ways courses can continuously improve is by soliciting feedback from students during the semester and responding to that feedback.
The Mid-Course Assessment Process (MAP) is a voluntary activity by a faculty member to gather anonymous student feedback about the course mid-semester.
Benefits of a Mid-term assessment
Gives instructors information about their students’ perceptions of the course, with particular emphasis on what helps them learn before the end of the semester.
Feedback about the various features of the course is given in time for an instructor to make changes, if deemed necessary.
Students are given a strong message that the instructor cares about how they are doing in the course. Further, asking students for anonymous Mid-Course feedback is an excellent way to get them in the practice of providing feedback, which research suggests can increase participation in surveys at the end of the semester, such as the Student Experience of Learning Surveys.
The Recommended Mid-course Assessment Process (MAP)
1. Determine Questions and schedule when to distribute. Consider the questions below and/or any other course-specific questions. If faculty need help creating this anonymous survey, the Educational Excellence & Effectiveness team can provide an anonymous Qualtrics link to the faculty member for a specific course that the faculty member can distribute to their courses (teaching.excellence@unh.edu).
Standard Mid-Term Assessment Questions
1. What has been the most helpful to your learning in this course so far?
2. What has been the least helpful to your learning in this course so far?
3. What suggestions can you offer to make this course a better learning experience?
2. Introducing students to a mid-term assessment. Share with your students that you will be asking for course feedback in an anonymous survey (meaning their responses will not be linked to their identity).
To boost participation, instructors are encouraged to take a few minutes before or after class to ask students to complete the mid-term assessment of the course. If an online (rather than paper survey is used) we recommend leaving the survey open for ~48 hours.
3. Review your results. After the MAP closes, review the results and think about what, if any, mid-semester modifications you would like to make to the course. Have a conversation with the students to explain to them what you heard and what modifications (if any) you will make to the course that semester. Ensure that you protect students' privacy by generalizing the results of your MAP feedback when discussing the results with your students (do not quote students' feedback from the MAP). If there are suggestions from the students that you are not responding to, you can recognize perspectives and then explain why you are not making those modifications this term. Doing so, shows the students that their voice was heard.
If you would like to set up a consultation to review your mid-term assessment results, email teaching.excellence@unh.edu.