Module Course and Unit Evaluations Module course or
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Module, Course and Unit Evaluations • Module, course or unit evaluations give you the opportunity to make your voice heard by giving feedback about your modules. • The more students complete an evaluation the more significance the results have: adding your voice adds weight to the feedback given by your peers. • Your tutors, module leaders, Degree Programme Director and Head of Academic unit value your feedback. They consider results and where appropriate make positive changes to the module.
Developing your skills • Peer assessment and review are important professional skills in many career areas, and completing evaluations helps you to develop these skills for your future. • Giving constructive feedback is a key skill for communication and team working, outlined in the Newcastle University Graduate Skills Framework (http: //www. ncl. ac. uk/students/nclplus/skills/)
Giving constructive feedback Principles for giving constructive and useable feedback: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Be specific Be realistic Focus on the issue, not the person Suggest solutions Keep it relevant
1. Be Specific Avoid vague positive or negative comments, like ‘the module was excellent’, or ‘the module was rubbish’. Feedback like this isn’t useful because it doesn’t tell the person reading your comments what makes you think this. Instead, explain what you felt was positive, and/or what you felt was negative. ‘I found the workshops really interesting, and the examples helped me to understand theory. However, the required reading was very challenging, and I would have liked to have more opportunity to ask questions about it in class. ’
2. Be realistic Make sure that the comments you make are realistic. ‘The assessment should be scrapped’ This comment would be unrealistic, because assessments are often an essential way of measuring what you have learned, and helping you to identify what you can do to further improve your knowledge and skills. Instead, if you felt that there were problems with the assessment, explain why you think that was. ‘I found it difficult to manage the time I spent on the assessment. I was unsure about how to begin the project, and wasted some time at the beginning trying out different approaches that didn’t work. ’
3. Focus on the issue, not the person Avoid writing anything offensive, or anything that could be seen as personally insulting. Your School will discount comments like this, meaning that your feedback will not be considered. Instead, give details about any problems in order to help your module leader and school to understand address them. ‘I found the lecture on statistical analysis difficult to follow, because it covered a lot of new material. The pace of the lecture was quite fast, and it was hard to grasp so many different techniques in such a short time. ’
4. Suggest solutions If there is something that you felt was negative about a module, course or unit, explain how you think it could be avoided or improved. The solutions that you suggest will be considered by your School, and if feasible they may be put into practice. ‘It would be helpful to have the handouts for the lectures in advance, so that you can get an idea of the topic before you come to the lecture. I also think it would be useful to work through some examples of the statistical techniques during the seminars. ’
5. Keep it relevant You may find that a question in an evaluation is not applicable to your experience. For example, where there are several instructors the evaluation will include a section that asks questions about each one of them, although you may not have been taught by all of them. If a question in an evaluation is not applicable to you, simply click on the ‘N/A’ option next to that question.
Find out more Take a look at http: //www. ncl. ac. uk/students/yousaidwedid/internal-surveys/ for more information about Module, Course and Unit Evaluations, including videos from staff and students about how your feedback is used.
