The Feedback Activity (survey) allows the instructor to solicit detailed feedback from students. The following are scenarios in which one might use the Feedback Activity in GauchoSpace.
- You wish to conduct a mid- or end-of-term informal evaluation of your class (or some aspect of the class: teaching, materials, topics, readings, activities, etc.).
- The Office of Instructional Consultation has created mid-quarter feedback templates that you can add directly to your course.
- You wish to offer a suggestion box or anonymous reporting of bullying, concerns for peers, etc.
- You wish to conduct an assessment of needs, survey of interests, or other open-ended feedback from participants in your course.
If you want to poll students with a single question, the Choice Activity would work best: Best Practices: Creating a Poll.
Here is how to add the Feedback activity to your course site:
- Log in to GauchoSpace, enter your course site and Turn editing on.
- Select the week/section block in which you would like the activity. Then, click +Add an activity or resource.
- Click on the Feedback option.
- Add a name and description.
- In the Question and submission settings subsection, select whether you want feedback to remain anonymous or if you want to record names. Under Record user names, if "Anonymous" is selected, activity related to this Feedback activity will not be recorded in the course logs. You can also specify if you want students to be allowed to submit multiple submissions and enable notifications.
- In the After Submission subsection, enter a Completion message that students will see when they complete the feedback activity. Show analysis page allows you to select whether students can see the results of the feedback after they have submitted it (i.e. can see what other students filled in their feedback survey). The default is set to "No".
- Click Save and display.
Here is how to add questions to your Feedback activity:
- Inside of your Feedback activity, click the Edit questions tab.
- In the dropdown menu for Add question, select the type of question you wish to add to the activity.
- For questions, you have the choice of: longer text answer, multiple-choice, multiple choice (rated), numeric answer, short text answer, and longer text answer.
- For longer surveys, you may wish to organize your survey using labels and page breaks
- If you are using the Multiple Choice question type, you must type each new option on a new line.
- Edit the question settings, then click Save question.
- Repeat steps 2 - 3 with all of the questions you wish to include in the Feedback activity.
- When you are finished adding questions, you may leave the module and return to your course.
To view and export the results of your Feedback activity, follow these steps:
- On your GauchoSpace course page, click on the desired Feedback activity.
- To view individual response results, click on the Show Responses tab.
- To view summary response results, click on the Analysis tab.
- To export results, click on the Analysis tab. Then, click Export to Excel. The Excel spreadsheet will contain two tabs: the "Survey" tab will show an overview of your data and the "Detailed" tab will show the data for each submission.
Here are some benefits of the Feedback activity:
- As a reflective practice, instructors may use student feedback to make adjustments in instructional delivery, course activities, guest speakers, pacing, etc.
- As a responsive teaching practice, instructors may use student feedback midway through the term to address individual student concerns and issues.
- As a formative assessment (assessment for learning), this tool can be used to informally assess students' understanding of a topic or concept prior to or during instruction.
- Feedback can be anonymous if desired.
- The results of the survey can be restricted to instructors only, or they can be made visible to all participants in a class.
- The Feedback tool offers a variety of question types, including multiple-choice, yes/no, and open text fields.
- You can obtain an online record of student feedback on a course or topic. Responses can be exported to Excel.
Here are some limitations of the Feedback activity:
- If not set up properly, students may see others’ responses.
- If anonymity is enabled, it may be challenging to ensure that all students participate (i.e., instructors may not know who declined to participate).
- Time-consuming. The instructor has to set up the survey questions (and question types) in advance. However, the time to set up the feedback activity is comparable to setting up a quiz in GauchoSpace.
- Many options for participation, question types, and analysis of results. While it may be beneficial to have so many options, it may also be confusing. Instructors should check their work to ensure that the module is set up exactly how they want it to look/function.