Making Course Improvement Visible: Student Feedback & Documenting Instructor Growth

Facilitator: Haley Zubyk, Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream, Human Biology Program
End-of-term course evaluations are valuable, but they often arrive too late to support the students currently in your classroom, and they rarely provide the kind of specific, actionable insight that helps you refine course design in real time. In large classes, especially, it can be difficult to hear from a broad range of student voices and to translate feedback into changes that are both feasible and transparent.
This session will focus on practical, scalable approaches for gathering student feedback throughout the term to improve both your course and the student experience. Topics will include designing effective mid-course feedback (what to ask and how to implement it), using student advisory boards to better understand student needs, and collecting structured student reflections on how learning outcomes were achieved (or not) and how course elements like assessments and tutorials supported learning. We’ll also explore “class reaction” surveys that can be deployed quickly to check clarity of expectations, support new activities, and identify confusion before it becomes frustration.
Participants will leave with a set of ready-to-use strategies for collecting feedback in ways that build trust and transparency, along with guidance on how to document and use this feedback for professional development. We’ll discuss how these data and insights can support reflective teaching practice, inform iterative course improvements, and provide additional sources of concrete evidence for teaching dossiers, awards, PTR, and other demonstrations of teaching effectiveness.
Our faculty facilitators in this lunch series have completed 25 modules and earned the Certificate in Effective University Instruction offered by the Association of College and University Educators (ACUE) in partnership with CTSI. Learn more about the ACUE Lunch and Learn Series (https://teaching.utoronto.ca/acue-lunch-and-learn/).   
 Series Description: Join U of T faculty graduates of the Association of College and University Educators (ACUE) Effective Teaching Practices course (ACUE-Certified Faculty) as they share insights from the 25 modules they completed over several months. They implemented, reimagined, and extended evidence-based teaching practices to support their teaching, learning and student success at U of T. This Series invites participants to hear from these instructors: their reflections upon what they have learned, and practical examples and tips informed by evidence-based strategies. Facilitators will engage in discussions on sharing these approaches into one’s current practice.