General Information on Informal Early Feedback in the Mathematics Department

"Informal Early Feedback" (IEF) is a way to get information from your students about your teaching and their learning. It is done during the course of the semester, rather than at the end. In the math department, IEF is usually done as a questionnaire filled out anonymously by the students and read only by the instructor. The advantages of IEF are:

• You may learn some things about your teaching which would not otherwise have come to light.
• You will get feedback early enough in the semester that you can make changes, if you feel changes are warranted.
• You may uncover some misunderstandings your students have and be able to discuss these with the students.
• The process can improve student attitudes by demonstrating that you value their opinions.

Click below for a copy of the "Informal Early Feedback" (IEF) forms which are used by the Mathematics Department and instructions for their use. After reading the instructions, please make enough photocopies for the classes you are teaching and ask the students to fill them out anonymously. The evaluations are for your use only and the results are not reported to anyone else. Your mentor will be contacting you to set up a short meeting to discuss how you can use the evaluation results to improve your teaching.

IEF form (pdf file) IEF instructions

If you wish, you can add questions to the form or make up your own form specific to the class you are teaching.

You can find more thoughts on the use of IEF at the Center for Teaching Excellence website http://www.oir.uiuc.edu/Did/Faculty/IEF/overview.htm.

Please contact Karen Mortensen (kmortens@math.uiuc.edu) with any questions.