Mid-semester Course Feedback Surveys Extend the Reach of an Engineering Teaching Center

Kathryn Dimiduk; Hadas Ritz; Orlay Santa

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Conference: 2021 ASEE St. Lawrence Section Conference
Location: Virtual
Publication Date: April 17, 2021
Start Date: April 17, 2021
End Date: April 17, 2021
Tagged Topic: Diversity
Page Count: 16
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--38302
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/38302
Download Count: 525

Paper Authors

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Kathryn Dimiduk Cornell University

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Kathryn Dimiduk is the Director of the James McCormick Family Teaching Excellence Institute in the College of Engineering at Cornell University. She received her B.A. in Physics from Cornell University and her Ph.D. in Applied Physics from Stanford University. Her current research interests are in engineering education.

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Hadas Ritz Cornell University orcid.org/0000-0002-5396-2962

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Hadas Ritz is a senior lecturer in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, and a Faculty Teaching Fellow at the James McCormick Family Teaching Excellence Institute (MTEI) at Cornell University, where she received her PhD in Mechanical Engineering in 2008. Since then she has taught required and elective courses covering a wide range of topics in the undergraduate Mechanical Engineering curriculum. In her work with MTEI she co-leads teaching workshops for new faculty and assists with other teaching excellence initiatives. Her main teaching interests include solid mechanics and engineering mathematics. Among other teaching awards, she received the 2021 ASEE National Outstanding Teaching Award.

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Orlay Santa Cornell University

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Abstract

Mid-semester Course Feedback Surveys Extend the Reach of an Engineering Teaching Center

Abstract Formative mid-semester feedback to faculty can be used to improve a course before the summative end-of-semester teaching evaluations run by a college or university. The James McCormick Family Teaching Excellence Institute (MTEI) has changed the culture in Cornell University's College of Engineering such that the norm across most of the departments in the college is to incorporate mid-semester feedback accompanied by actionable suggestions from MTEI. Faculty taking specific individualized action on student-identified problem areas each semester, when carried out by many professors across multiple semesters and in many courses, increases the impact of MTEI far beyond the handful of "regulars" who would attend a teaching development event. The mid-semester survey MTEI uses was created in collaboration with faculty in one department and across the last seven years has been modified and fully adopted in seven additional departments and partially adopted in several more departments. The surveys can be customized according to individual departments and instructors' preferences. The mid-semester feedback is conducted via anonymous, adaptive Qualtrics surveys deployed to the students enrolled in each participating course. The survey design and implementation has been mindful of both student and faculty time. Students first select aspects of the course they feel need improvement and are only asked detailed survey questions about those areas. Then students respond to multiple select questions to identify what is going particularly well in the course, both in class and on assignments. A third block of questions, suggested and vetted by Cornell’s Diversity Programs in Engineering Office, asks students about feeling included in the course. Using drill-down and multiple select options organizes student's responses, making it more efficient to identify themes in the data. When the students' responses have been collected, MTEI personnel read through each course's report, highlight key pieces of student feedback, and send the report to the instructor in an email including a summary and actionable suggestions to address significant student concerns. Faculty then have the option of reading the full report for themselves or focusing just on the MTEI analysis. They can spend their time, effort, and focus on improving the course, not on the logistics of creating and running feedback surveys. While the feedback and responses are at the course level, across the college we see improvements in how often strengths of courses are cited by students. The process is labor-intensive for MTEI, but it is efficient for both students and faculty, and is a key component of improving the general level of teaching effectiveness across the college.

Note: This abstract was accepted to last year's conference and published in last year's conference proceedings. This submission is to present the work at the 2021 conference per the call for submissions including canceled but published presentations.

Citation
Format

Dimiduk, K., & Ritz, H., & Santa, O. (2021, April), Mid-semester Course Feedback Surveys Extend the Reach of an Engineering Teaching Center Paper presented at 2021 ASEE St. Lawrence Section Conference, Virtual. 10.18260/1-2--38302

TY - CPAPER
AB - Mid-semester Course Feedback Surveys
Extend the Reach of an Engineering Teaching Center

Abstract
Formative mid-semester feedback to faculty can be used to improve a course before the summative end-of-semester teaching evaluations run by a college or university. The James McCormick Family Teaching Excellence Institute (MTEI) has changed the culture in Cornell University&#39;s College of Engineering such that the norm across most of the departments in the college is to incorporate mid-semester feedback accompanied by actionable suggestions from MTEI. Faculty taking specific individualized action on student-identified problem areas each semester, when carried out by many professors across multiple semesters and in many courses, increases the impact of MTEI far beyond the handful of &quot;regulars&quot; who would attend a teaching development event.
The mid-semester survey MTEI uses was created in collaboration with faculty in one department and across the last seven years has been modified and fully adopted in seven additional departments and partially adopted in several more departments. The surveys can be customized according to individual departments and instructors&#39; preferences. The mid-semester feedback is conducted via anonymous, adaptive Qualtrics surveys deployed to the students enrolled in each participating course.
The survey design and implementation has been mindful of both student and faculty time. Students first select aspects of the course they feel need improvement and are only asked detailed survey questions about those areas. Then students respond to multiple select questions to identify what is going particularly well in the course, both in class and on assignments. A third block of questions, suggested and vetted by Cornell’s Diversity Programs in Engineering Office, asks students about feeling included in the course. Using drill-down and multiple select options organizes student&#39;s responses, making it more efficient to identify themes in the data. When the students&#39; responses have been collected, MTEI personnel read through each course&#39;s report, highlight key pieces of student feedback, and send the report to the instructor in an email including a summary and actionable suggestions to address significant student concerns. Faculty then have the option of reading the full report for themselves or focusing just on the MTEI analysis. They can spend their time, effort, and focus on improving the course, not on the logistics of creating and running feedback surveys.
While the feedback and responses are at the course level, across the college we see improvements in how often strengths of courses are cited by students. The process is labor-intensive for MTEI, but it is efficient for both students and faculty, and is a key component of improving the general level of teaching effectiveness across the college.

Note: This abstract was accepted to last year&#39;s conference and published in last year&#39;s conference proceedings. This submission is to present the work at the 2021 conference per the call for submissions including canceled but published presentations.
AU - Kathryn Dimiduk
AU - Hadas Ritz
AU - Orlay Santa
CY - Virtual
DA - 2021/04/17
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - Mid-semester Course Feedback Surveys Extend the Reach of an Engineering Teaching Center
UR - https://peer.asee.org/38302
DO - 10.18260/1-2--38302
ER -