Students helping students to provide valuable feedback on course evaluations

Abstract

One of the purposes of the course evaluations or student evaluation of teaching (SET) tool is to help instructors enhance the teaching and learning experience in their courses. However, student feedback can often be more unconstructive than useful because students are usually asked to evaluate instruction with little or no formal training. The project described in this paper aims to improve the quality of student responses to open-ended questions by partnering with students who demonstrate to their peers the importance of SET and how to compose potent answers for instructors. For the project brief instructional videos were developed and delivered to over 23 classes before students completed the SET. A mixed methods approach was used to analyze the collected data. The study provides a future-ready professional development opportunity for students and faculty, and makes the rubric and videos available for other institutions to use.