Student evaluations of instruction were originally intended as an assessment tool ; their primary purpose was as a feedback mechanism by which students could inform instructors about their experiences in a course. Over the years this function has been largely superseded by the accountability function of student evaluations, as they are now primarily used as evidence of an instructor's teaching ability.
Western is committed to the use of multiple assessment tools for continually improving teaching and learning. As part of that commitment, a Midterm Teaching and Learning Survey has been created and made available for all instructors who use Blackboard in their courses.
The survey is designed to be easily administered online by the individual instructor. The survey contains fifteen questions about student learning, plus an area for student comments. In addition, a pool of many additional questions covering a wide range of topics is also included. Instructors may easily add questions to the survey from the pool, or write their own assessment questions. Immediate and ongoing feedback allows instructors to make timely adjustments to course organization, to experiment with pedagogical innovation, and to get concrete feedback about student learning experiences.
Unlike “official” student evaluations of instruction administered by the Testing Center, the Midterm Assessment survey is designed to be a completely automated, confidential exchange between students and their instructor. Responses are processed within the boundaries of each course's Blackboard domain, and are only accessible to the individual instructor. All faculty are encouraged to experiment with this tool and to provide feedback to the Office of Institutional Assessment, Testing, and Research about their experiences with the Midterm Assessment Survey tool.
Every new Blackboard course is created with the mid-term evaluation survey included. If you are copying a Blackboard course, that course's mid-term evaluation survey will also be included. If the course you are copying does not have a survey, please contact Blackboard Help to have the survey copied to your new course (once it has been created).
The survey material is included in your Blackboard course as two separate pieces. The first piece is a standard survey, containing a pre-established set of questions that is ready to be deployed. The second piece is a pool of survey questions that can be added to the pre-established survey. As the instructor of the course, you have the ability to modify the survey to meet the particular evaluation needs of your course.
Before the survey can be delivered to students, it must be deployed into one of the content areas of your course. This may be course documents, assignments, or another content area that you specify. To deploy the survey:
You can add additional survey questions:
The results of the Mid-Term Assessment of Teaching and Learning Survey will display the aggregate responses for all of the respondents. You will be able to determine if an individual student has completed the survey, but you will not be able to see an individual student's responses. To review the results of the survey:
Copyright ©
2013 Western Washington University : page updated
02.26.2013