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Review your course and get feedback

Why you should review and get feedback, how to get feedback, and encouraging useful feedback.

You need to be able to review your course so you can:

  • keep improving it
  • ensure that learners get as much out of the course as possible
  • attract more learners in the future

Using reflection and feedback will give you solid evidence to review your course.

Evaluate your course so you can improve it

It is important to plan in advance when and how you will review your course. Consider: 

  • When and how often you will meet to review the course (e.g. termly, monthly) 
  • Who will be present in review meetings (e.g. other members of the course team) 
  • What data you will base your review on 

In general, there are three sources of data that are important to consider when reviewing your course: learner feedback, educator feedback, and learning environment data.

Get feedback from your learners

It’s important to ask your learners what they think of the course before, throughout and after the course, even if it’s just a one-day course. This means:

  • asking learners before or at the start of the course what their expectations are – their goals and desires
  • keeping in touch with how students are responding to the course, face to face or online
  • asking learners at the end what they thought of the course
  • telling learners what steps you'll take to act on their feedback
  • using the feedback with your notes to review and improve your course

Start by planning how you’ll collect feedback as soon as possible, and well in advance of your course starting. 

You might use:

Getting feedback from educators

Your course team has a unique perspective on aspects that have gone well and those that could still be improved. 

It is important to get feedback from the rest of your course team on a regular basis. You might gather their feedback by: 

  • Asking them to complete a feedback form specifically tailored to your course 
  • Holding a formal review meeting at a specified date 
  • Having regular informal review meetings about the course 

If you created the course on your own, you could consider carrying out a self-evaluation of your own work. 

Learning environment data

If your course is hosted on UCL Extend or FutureLearn, the platform will have stored and made available a wealth of data on how users are interacting with the course. This data can provide invaluable insights into areas such as: 

  • Engagement, e.g. which course sections are learners most and least interacting with 
  • Activity participation and completion, e.g. which tasks have been completed most and least frequently 
  • Assessment, e.g. which assessments on the course are most challenging as shown by score averages 

Encouraging useful feedback

Some learners might be reluctant to give what they think might be 'negative' feedback. Encourage them to provide constructive feedback that will help you make the course better.

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