Faculty Resources and Training

The “myFocus” tool is designed to identify the two or three questions faculty should focus on to have the largest overall improvement in their course evaluations. You can create action plans for each myFocus course evaluation question after checking out a knowledge base of how other faculty improved on each specific question. If you are identified as an instructor with very high rating scores for a particular course evaluation question, then you can provide details of what you do in your course(s) that are related to that question – to help faculty that would like to improve that aspect of their course/instruction.

Under the class tile of selected course click “Add/See Notes” and type in any notes you want to make for yourself for future review/use. These can include reminders about things that affected your evaluation (positively or negatively) so you know what is working well and what can be improved as well as your reflection on student feedback trends and ideas on how you might follow-up on those.

For the feedback you receive from students to be meaningful, it is important to ensure there is a high response rate. If only one student shares a criticism out of three participants in a course of twenty-five students, then you cannot be sure if that was a common concern that you might want to focus on improving in the future or if it was the opinion of only one student. Also, to improve the usefulness of the students’ feedback, remind them that they should: 

• Base their feedback on the entire course
• Be specific
• Use examples
• Offer recommendations or suggestions

• Remind students that you can use their feedback to:
  1. help identify areas of strength and where improvements can be made in the course
  2. serve as evidence of teaching efficacy or excellence for use in faculty promotion and tenure processes, award nominations, etc.
• Give specific examples of how you have used feedback from previous course evaluations: Tell students about a recent example of feedback that you used to improve your course(s). This will help your students know how the feedback from previous students benefitted them and how their feedback will benefit students who take your course(s) in the future.
• Give students time in class: Use the beginning or end of a class meeting (~10 minutes) to have the students take the course evaluation survey. This typically results in similar response rates when compared to previous administrations of pencil-and-paper course evaluations. If you do this, be sure you step out of the classroom to ensure their responses are confidential. Prior to the class meeting where you will have the students participate, either encourage students to bring an appropriate device (e.g., laptop, tablet, smartphone) or schedule a computer lab for that particular class meeting (with reminders of the course location, if applicable), so they can participate. See "Use SmartEvals response rate-related tools" for more details on getting and using QR codes and emails to students through SmartEvals.
• Plan regular reminders: Make sure reminding the students to fill out the survey for your course is a regular habit while course evaluations are open. You can also remind the students in different ways (e.g., on the opening/closing presentation slide, verbally announce, include in course “Announcement” in the Moodle course page, emails through your Moodle course or Loyola Outlook account, etc.). 
• Reiterate to students that their responses are anonymous: It is very important that students understand that their responses are anonymous so that they will feel comfortable being honest without fear of repercussions.
• Do you need to know who participated? Although SmartEvals does not allow instructors to identify which students participated, as needed, you can request that students take a screenshot of their SmartEvals dashboard that includes their name, your course’s tile, and “Completed” under that tile – and then share that with you (via email, Moodle, or any additional way you specify to them).

• Edit (as needed), print, and then pass out course-specific QR code handouts to your students as reminders or quick “links,” since they can use their smartphones to scan the QR code to get directly to your course’s specific evaluation page. Note: If you put this QR code in your Moodle course instead of printing it and handing it out to your students, be sure to update it from semester-to-semester since it is a different code each time.
• Check your emails from OIR/SmartEvals that are sent directly to you throughout the evaluation period, which include links to your QR codes and current response rates for each course.
• Log in to SmartEvals to view your dashboard and get real-time updates of the response rates in each course on the respective course tile.

• Prior to course evaluation completion, be clear with students about:
  • the course design/structure, policies, your expectations of students, etc. (e.g., syllabus)
  • as well as the "etiquette" of course evaluations for constructive feedback
• Don’t take them personally
• Do take them seriously (especially if the same thought is repeated by multiple students)
• Consider the context (e.g., is this a course for freshmen, majors, general education requirement fulfillment, was it offered at 8 am, is this your first time teaching this course, what interventions did you add between the last time you taught this course and how that might impact the evaluations, is this the first time you tried that intervention, etc.)
• Translate student language to identify implications or align themes to areas of teaching excellence you want to target

• Perlmutter, D.D. 2011. “How to Read a Student Evaluation of Your Teaching” Chronicle of Higher Education.
• Gannon, K. 2018. “In Defense (Sort of) of Student Evaluations of Teaching” Chronicle of Higher Education.
• Whitaker, M. 2019. “How to Make the Best of Bad Course Evaluations” Chronicle of Higher Education.
• LeBlanc, D. 2023. “Coping With Course Evaluations” Inside Higher Education.
• Halonen, J.S. and D.S. Dunn. 2023. "Measuring Up: How to Manage Those Dreaded Course Evaluations" Chronicle of Higher Education

The SmartEvals system is only used to request feedback from students at the end of the course. However, there is nothing stopping you from checking in with your students earlier in the course so you can adjust, as needed/able, to address any of student feedback or concerns. Some quick and easy ways to do this are via a course assignment/quiz or anonymous surveys/responses written on index cards handed in at the end of the class meeting.

You can ask the same questions that are on the end-of the course survey (see Survey Form Setup to review questions) to evaluate any change in responses after your intervention(s) were implemented. Otherwise, think about using two or more of the following three general questions or the respective more specific versions below each:

1. What helps your learning?
   • What am I doing that is helping your learning in this course?
   • What are you doing that is helping your learning in this course?
2. What hinders your learning?
   • What am I doing that is hindering your learning in this course?
   • What are you doing that is hindering your learning in this course?
3. What suggestions do you have to enhance your learning?
   • What do you suggest I could do to improve your learning in this course?
   • What will you do to improve your learning in this course?

• Bates College’s Samples of Mid Semester Assessments
• Columbia University’s Center for Teaching and Learning’s Early and Mid-Semester Student Feedback Question Bank
• McGill University’s Teaching and Learning Services‘ Mid-course Evaluations 
• Northeastern University’s Center for Advancing Teaching and Learning Through Research’s Early/Midterm Course Feedback
• University of California Berkeley’s Center for Teaching & Learning’s Spotlight on Teaching and Learning: Mid-Semester Check-In
• University of California Berkeley’s Center for Teaching & Learning’s Teaching Resources: Sample Midterm Evaluations
• University of Connecticut’s Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning’s Mid-semester Formative Feedback
• University of Delaware’s Center for Teaching & Assessment of Learning’s Mid-Course Feedback
• University of Texas at Austin’s Center for Teaching and Learning’s Mid-Semester Feedback