Mid-term Feedback as Formative Assessment

What if midterm feedback helped us see what kind of learning is happening?

End-of-course surveys often arrive when we can no longer make a difference for the students who completed them. Midterm feedback gives us a chance to listen and adjust while the course is still underway.

In ED 321: Dyslexia for Educators, I used L. Dee Fink’s six types of significant learning to think about what I wanted to learn from students’ feedback. Rather than asking only whether the course was going well, I wanted to hear how their understanding of dyslexia, and their thinking as future teachers, was developing.

Using a Likert scale from strongly disagree to strongly agree, I asked students to rate the following statements:

• Foundational Knowledge: “My understanding of ideas and information related to dyslexia has increased because of this course.”
• Application: “I am learning to apply my knowledge of dyslexia in ways that require critical, creative, or practical thinking.”
• Integration: “I am able to connect ideas and learning experiences in this course with previous courses, clinical observations, and my own lived experiences”
• Human Dimension: “The knowledge and experiences I've had in ED 321 have caused me to think more deeply about the kind of teacher I want to become.”
• Caring: “The learning experiences in ED 321 have changed the way I thought about dyslexia and its impact on students.”

I also left space for students to tell me where they wanted the learning to go next (Learning How to Learn):

“What do you want to learn more about before the end of this semester regarding dyslexia?”

And I made room for anything my questions might have missed:

“What thoughts, if any, do you want to share regarding your learning and experiences so far in ED 321?”

These last two questions matter. A framework can help us ask more intentional questions, but it should not limit what students are able to tell us. Their responses may affirm what we hoped was happening, reveal a gap between our intentions and their experience, or point to a question we had not considered.

Of course, collecting feedback is only the beginning. The reflective work is to look for patterns, consider them alongside students’ work, decide what we can address this semester, and let students know what we heard.

Midterm feedback is not a verdict on our teaching. It is an invitation to pay attention while there is still time to act.

Do you ask for mid-term feedback?  If so, what do your midterm questions help you notice about student learning?