Administering Mid-Semester Formative Assessments
Do you wonder how your students are responding to your course this semester?
Consider administering a formative assessment to gather mid-semester feedback that you can use to improve your teaching while your course is underway. Formative assessment can help you recognize when your students are struggling and enable you to address problems in the middle of the semester.
Unlike end-of-semester student evaluations of teaching, mid-semester surveys are optional and completely confidential. They can be administered in class, on HuskyCT through the Survey tool, or through an emailed Qualtrics survey. Visit the ITL website's Mid-Semester Formative Evaluations page to review the survey instruments available on Qualtrics.
You can use these formative assessments privately, or you may decide to share them with your department head, along with the resulting course modifications, and include the same in your teaching portfolio.
Results of these surveys can provide you with valuable opportunities for reflection and course improvement, and studies show that when students know that you intend to use the results to improve your course immediately, their response rates are typically high and carefully thought-out.
Visit Mid-Semester Formative Evaluations or contact the Institute for Teaching and Learning if you would like to learn more about formative assessment, request a Qualtrics survey to be emailed to your class or arrange for a consultation.
For more information, contact: the Institute for Teaching and Learning at itl@uconn.edu.