Interim-class student feedback
Interim-class student feedback is one of UQ's course and teaching quality enhancement mechanisms.
It enables you to check in with your students, receive timely feedback and implement evidence-based changes that will make a difference to the current cohort before their course finishes.
ITaLI aims to empower staff to run instant polls or surveys for interim-class student feedback by leveraging existing tools and resources listed below. If you wish to pilot any of these tools, our eLearning advisers and the Evaluations team are happy to provide advice and technical support.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What is the difference between interim-class feedback and SECaT evaluations?
The Student Evaluation of Course and Teacher (SECaT) is a quality assurance mechanism to meet the University’s regulatory requirements at the institutional level. Therefore, SECaT questions are preset for benchmarking purposes.
The nature of interim-class feedback is formative and informative – unlike SECaT, a summative evaluation. With interim-class feedback, you have the autonomy to customise questions, select your favourite tool, and make it as fun, formative and informative as possible to collect feedback.
When should I plan to seek feedback from students?
Below is a draft semester-based timeline to help you plan and administer interim-class student feedback surveys prior to SECaT evaluations.
| Week 1–2 | Plan for interim class feedback over the semester |
|---|---|
| Week 3–4 | Design and test interim-class feedback tools |
| Week 5–6 | Collect interim class feedback (T1) |
| Interim-semester break | Analyse data/pull-out findings and discuss them with your colleagues and supervisor |
| Week 7 | Share feedback with your students and implement changes, if any |
| Week 8–9 | Re-run interim-class feedback (T2) to check on the outcome of changes implemented, if appropriate |
| Week 10–12 | SECaT evaluations (centrally administered/summative evaluation) |
| Post grade finalisation/receiving SECaT reports | Close the feedback loop with students by sharing interim-class feedback and SECaT comments. Add a summary of students’ feedback to the relevant ECP section. |
What tools are available if I want to collect interim-class feedback from students?
There are many ways that you can collect interim-class feedback from students, especially if it is self-administered to suit your teaching plan over the semester.
You can consider any of the following tools, depending on your goals and context – most of them can be integrated into your Learn.UQ (Blackboard) course site.
1. Collect real-time (instant) feedback and share it with students during a lecture
UQ Active Learn (supported by eLearning)
UQ Active Learn is a suite of three applications: UQpoll, UQwordcloud, UQwordstream. These applications are used to collect student responses to a question or a series of questions posed during a lecture/tutorial. It means that you receive instant feedback and can share it with your students during a lecture.
Students are able to respond using a web-enabled device (PC, Mac, iPad, iPhone, Android device or other smartphones).
While questions can be posed via multiple channels, it is recommended to write them on a PowerPoint slide to engage students in external and internal classes, if they are taught concurrently.
- Written in a PowerPoint slide (internal and/or external)
- Written on the whiteboard (internal)
- Verbally (internal)
UQpoll automatically collates student responses to a multiple-choice question with a maximum of five answer options (A to E). It is quick and easy to set up but has limitations in terms of the number of questions you can ask at any one time. Also, you can’t rename answers on the poll directly. Results are displayed as a graph. You can save results as an image or a .csv spreadsheet file.
UQwordcloud automatically collates student responses to a short answer question. The results are displayed as a brainstorm/word cloud. You can save results as an image or a .csv spreadsheet file.
UQwordstream collates student responses to an open-ended question. The results are automatically displayed as a Wordstream. You can save results as a .csv spreadsheet file only.
ZoomPoll (ideal for courses delivered entirely online in external mode)
ZoomPoll is a great option as it can be used during online lectures. You can poll students to check their understanding or gather views on a particular topic or aspect of your course and teaching with up to 10 possible answer options in a multiple-choice question. There are new question types available, as well as the option to make students’ responses anonymous.
2. Collect non-instant feedback to give your students more time to reflect
PadletUQ (supported by eLearning)
Padlet is an online tool that allows you to create virtual boards. Students can provide feedback underneath points/questions. They can also upload media such as GIFs and videos anonymously in a secure location.
PadletUQ is available to both UQ staff and students. PadletUQ has both comments and likes enabled to encourage students to provide feedback on specific teaching or assessment in the semester. Padlet is a useful tool for online and blended courses or for large cohort courses where face-to-face interactions are less frequent. Padlet posts can be backed up and published as either image files or PDF files.
Padlet must be searchable by the entire organisation for student names to appear, otherwise student responses are anonymous. There is also no reporting functionality.
ITaLI’s eLearning team provides a guide on how to remake the Padlet template. Course coordinators in MEDI7211 and others have already adopted Padlet to seek students’ feedback. Dr Joan Li and her team are more than happy to provide advice if you are interested.
H5P (supported by eLearning)
H5P is an open-source online toolbox of activities that allows staff to create and share interactive content in courses. There is a range of content types that may be suitable for collecting feedback such as Multipoll, Emoticon Cloud and WordCloud.
Multipoll in H5P is an excellent option to explore – including new polling question types. Mutlipoll can be anonymous if using the game code option, but no information is retained in reporting afterwards – it is live/online only while deploying the poll.
All H5P content must be linked to a Learn.UQ course for reporting data to be available in H5P.
To access H5P and begin creating interactive learning objects, please contact the eLearning team to request a license.
3. Other survey tools to collect student feedback
Microsoft Forms (supported by ITS)
UQ staff have access to Microsoft Forms part of the Microsoft 365 suite. The Evaluations team recommends Microsoft Forms as the best supported tool for gathering student feedback with multiple question types, anonymous functionality, and greater control over who can complete the poll. If not already signed in, respondents will be prompted to log-in using their UQ credentials.
Microsoft Forms allows you to create surveys and responses in the form of students' ratings and/or feedback that can be exported to Excel.
View the Microsoft Forms online resources for further support.
Checkbox (supported by ITS)
Checkbox is UQ's centrally supported survey tool. Checkbox allows anyone with a UQ staff account to develop and conduct surveys for UQ staff and students.
Please contact the ITS Helpdesk for support with Checkbox.
Qualtrics (supported by ITS)
Qualtrics is a web-based survey tool used to conduct survey research, evaluations and other data collection activities.
Further guidance and support
As always, you can contact the Evaluations team for any inquiry related to interim-class student feedback.