Student Feedback – Center for Teaching and Learning /ctl Wed, 25 Mar 2026 20:26:35 +0000 en-US hourly 1 /ctl/wp-content/uploads/sites/88/2024/01/cropped-android-chrome-512x512-1-32x32.png Student Feedback – Center for Teaching and Learning /ctl 32 32 What Can We Learn from Course Evaluations? /ctl/what-can-we-learn-from-course-evaluations/ Wed, 03 Dec 2025 21:45:41 +0000 /ctl/?p=5261 Spoiler alert: you can't tell how well the students actually learned in your course. While feedback on your course evaluations will be helpful to understand the student experience, a recently published meta-analysis found no correlation between student evaluations of teaching (SETs) and later performance, and actually a negative correlation after grade controls. When schools connected contract renewal to SETs, there was evidence of grade inflation by those instructors.

]]> Spoiler alert: you can’t tell how well the students actually learned in your course. While feedback on your course evaluations will be helpful to understand the student experience, a recently published meta-analysis found no correlation between student evaluations of teaching (SETs) and later performance, and actually a negative correlation after grade controls. When schools connected contract renewal to SETs, there was evidence of grade inflation by those instructors. SETs can provide valuable information about the experience of your learners, but students are often poor judges of their own learning and often score the courses that engage them in the productive struggle of learning lower.

Would you like help in understanding the implications of your SETs for course design? Reach out to umpi-ctl@maine.edu to schedule a discussion.

Read the full article online:

Sixbert Sangwa, & Nsabiyumva, S. (2025). Student evaluations of teaching fail to predict learning: Meta-analysis of bias, grade inflation, and incentive distortion in higher education. [Preprint] 

]]> Create regular connections with every single learner /ctl/create-regular-connections-with-every-single-learner/ Wed, 03 Dec 2025 21:44:32 +0000 /ctl/?p=5252 One of the challenges of teaching is reaching every student. This can be especially difficult in distance courses where you don't have a chance to grab a student after class to check in on them.

]]> One of the challenges of teaching is reaching every student. This can be especially difficult in distance courses where you don’t have a chance to grab a student after class to check in on them.

I used a weekly exit ticket in my courses to develop regular connections with every single one of my learners in all of my course modalities. It included a quick less-than-5 minutes reflection on their cognitive, affective, behavioral, and contextual experiences that week. I set aside 30 minutes on Monday mornings to read and comment on each one and learned a lot from my learners about their experiences in my courses and how I could better support them. This regular communication helped to ensure that no student was left behind, and we got to see our conversation mapped out over the course of the semester.

I made a copy of  for each student and shared it with them privately. If I wanted to ensure they saw my response right away, I could mention them in a comment, so they got an email notification. Feel free to copy and adapt.  to see some of the types of responses that students shared that helped me understand their learning experience

If you have large enrollment classes, you might consider objective-type questions in a Google Form that allow you to see summaries in chart form.

]]> Facilitated Feedback /ctl/facilitated-feedback/ Wed, 22 Oct 2025 19:19:07 +0000 /ctl/?p=3550 Why wait until the end of the semester to get feedback from your students on the Student Evaluations of Teaching in Blue? With our Facilitated Feedback program, otherwise known as Ongoing Learning Assessment, we can help you understand the student experience in your courses, regardless of modality, with enough time to effect change that can improve learning.

]]> Why wait until the end of the semester to get feedback from your students on the Student Evaluations of Teaching in Blue? With our Facilitated Feedback program, otherwise known as Ongoing Learning Assessment, we can help you understand the student experience in your courses, regardless of modality, with enough time to effect change that can improve learning.

The process involves reaching out to CTL, setting up a time with us to plan the feedback prompts, select a time or space in your physical or digital class to facilitate a discussion with your students in your absence, and a scheduled debrief conversation to share our synthesis of the conversations.

This highly effective intervention can help you to make small or large adjustments midway through the semester to improve the learning experience for both you and your students. Reach out to CTL for more information or to get started: umpi-ctl@maine.edu.

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