By Anandi Nagarajan, Assistant Vice Provost for Pedagogy and Director, NYU Center for Teaching and Learning
When students speak, are we really listening?
Hearing from students isn’t just about collecting opinions—it’s about cultivating awareness. Student feedback, when used thoughtfully, turns evaluation into dialogue and transforms teaching from a one-way act into a shared learning process.
Gathering feedback isn’t simply a compliance task; it’s one of the most powerful forms of metacognition for educators. It invites us to think about our teaching by intentionally listening to those who experience it.
Feedback is not a grade—it’s a dialogue.
The Feedback Mindset
As educators, we often think of feedback as something we give—to help students improve. But feedback is equally powerful when we receive it. It reveals not only what students understand but how they experience our teaching.
When I first started teaching in 2001, I used to wait until end-of-semester evaluations to find out what worked. By then, it was too late to make changes that would benefit that class. Over time, I learned that feedback is most valuable when it’s formative—ongoing, specific, and actionable.
When we treat feedback as an invitation to reflection rather than a judgment, it becomes a bridge between intention and impact. It shifts teaching from performance to inquiry, inviting continuous calibration. As Boud and Molloy (2013) note, feedback is most effective when designed as a process for learning rather than a product of evaluation.
Learn More
How Can Faculty Support Students Better With Learning? The Student Perspective moderated by Associate Vice Provost De Angela Duff (TeachTalk video)
Utilizing Student Feedback To Improve Teaching Practice by Associate Vice Provost De Angela Duff and Assistant Vice Provost for Pedagogy Anandi Nagarajan (TeachTalk video)
The Formative Pause: Listening Mid-semester
The most meaningful feedback often comes during the semester—when there’s still time to respond. A brief “formative pause” allows you to check what’s working, identify where students are struggling, and make small adjustments that yield large effects.
Ways to Gather Feedback (Beyond Surveys)
Even though one-on-one conversations aren’t always possible, there are many simple and scalable ways to “listen” to students while a course is in progress:
- One-Minute Papers: End class by asking: “What’s the most important thing you learned today?” or “What’s still unclear?” These quick reflections surface comprehension gaps in real time.
- Stop–Start–Continue: Invite students to identify what to stop (what isn’t helping), start (new supports they need), and continue (what’s working well). A simple structure that organizes feedback into action. This method is simple, actionable, and widely used in higher education (Cunningham & White, 2020), including at NYU.
- Quick Digital Polls or Exit Tickets: Use Brightspace, Google Forms, Zoom polls, or Mentimeter to gauge patterns of understanding, workload balance, or engagement.
- Assignment Reflection Prompts: Add metacognitive questions to assignments, such as: “What part of this assignment was most challenging?” or “How did you approach this task?”
- Anonymous Midterm Focus Groups: Facilitate small-group discussions to explore what supports or hinders learning (preferably with a neutral colleague or teaching center to ensure student candor).
- Learning Journals or Weekly Check-Ins: Encourage ongoing reflections to help both you and your students track progress and identify barriers early.
- Midsemester Surveys: Collect feedback focused on the student learning experience, anonymously or not, using Google forms or Brightspace quizzes (read more about surveys in the next section).
Learn More
Real-Time Insights: Leveraging AI for Responsive Teaching in Large Classrooms by Rob Egan (NYU IT) and Craig Kapp (Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences) (TeachTalk video)
Enhancing Student Learning Through Midsemester Feedback by Professors Trace Jordan (CAS) and Beth Latimer (Meyers) (TeachTalk video)
Why Wait? Using Real-Time Student Feedback to Improve Your Course by Professors Trace Jordan (CAS) and Susannah Levi (Steinhardt) (TeachTalk video)
Designing Effective Feedback Surveys
As Klenowski (2016) reminds us, effective assessment design depends on clarity of purpose and criteria—principles equally vital in crafting student feedback tools. When you use surveys, keep them short; a few well-chosen questions often yield the most useful insights.
- Limit to 3–5 focused questions that connect directly to learning.
- Use open-ended prompts strategically and have a plan for how you will review the responses (NotebookLM or Google Gemini can be used for an initial sorting and categorizing).
- Collect feedback early (during weeks 3–4) and again mid-semester, while adjustments can still be made to the course.
- Maintain anonymity for candor, but consider occasional identified reflections to promote dialogue.
Example Mid-Semester Survey
- What’s helping you learn most in this class right now?
- What’s one thing that’s unclear or confusing?
- What’s one change that could improve your learning experience?
Short, focused, and actionable—the kind of evidence that helps both students and instructors recalibrate.
Learn More
Student Feedback Module in the How We Teach Toolkit in Brightspace (you can self-enroll or request assistance at teaching@nyu.edu)
Turning Input into Insight
The most transformative moment in the feedback cycle isn’t when you receive feedback—it’s what happens right after.
That pause—between hearing and responding—is a reflective act. It’s where we ask:
- What patterns do I see across responses?
- What’s within my control to change now?
- What might need a longer-term redesign?
This metacognitive pause helps shift from reaction to reflection. Instead of asking, “Why did students say this?” we begin asking, “What does this tell me about their learning experience—and mine?” Reflection deepens when we share what we’ve learned back with students—the moment where feedback becomes collaboration.
Reflection Prompts for Teachers
- When I collect feedback, do I focus more on satisfaction or on learning?
- How can I close the loop and show students that their feedback shaped the course?
- How will I decide what to change now, what to explain, and what to keep the same—and how can I communicate those choices transparently to students?
- How should I respond to or act on negative remarks objectively?
- How can I connect my explanations back to the purpose, task, and criteria of the course, so students understand the rationale behind my decisions?
- Which pieces of feedback point to small, immediate adjustments I can make this semester?
- Which issues signal a need for deeper redesign in future iterations of the course?
Once instructors share what they heard and the actions they plan to take, students can also pause to reflect. These prompts help students see feedback as part of a shared learning process.
Reflection Prompts for Students:
- What did I notice about how my instructor responded to class feedback?
- Which of the changes that my instructor described will most likely help my learning—and how can I make the most of them?
- How can I take greater ownership of my learning now that I understand my instructor’s goals and rationale?
- How might I adjust my own study habits or participation based on what I learned from the feedback discussion?
Closing the Loop: Reflection, Action, and Trust
Listening to students is an act of pedagogical humility and a foundation for reflective teaching.
The value of feedback lies not just in gathering it, but in responding to it—openly, thoughtfully, and visibly. When we share back what we heard and what we plan to change, students witness teaching as a process of continual learning.
Closing the loop doesn’t mean taking every suggestion or agreeing with every comment. It means showing students that you listened, that you reflected, and that your decisions are intentional.
Sometimes that means explaining what you can change right away, what you will consider for future semesters, and what must remain unchanged for pedagogical or curricular reasons.
This kind of transparency—naming both your choices and your rationale—reinforces the principles of the TILT framework (Transparency in Learning and Teaching): clarifying purpose, task, and criteria. When students understand why something is designed the way it is, they’re more likely to engage with it meaningfully.
Ultimately, closing the loop is about communication and trust. It signals that feedback matters, that teaching is responsive, and that learning—on both sides—is a reflective, evolving practice.
A Final Reflection
Student feedback is more than an evaluation tool—it’s a teaching practice. When we treat it as an exchange rather than a verdict, we model the same reflective habits we want our students to develop: noticing patterns, questioning assumptions, and using evidence to grow.
Feedback, at its best, is not about approval. It’s about awareness. And that awareness—mutual, reflective, and ongoing—is where real learning begins.
References
Boud, D., & Molloy, E. (2012). Rethinking models of feedback for learning: the challenge of design. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 38(6), 698–712. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2012.691462
Cunningham, C. M., & White, T. L. (2020). What are they trying to tell me? Large-scale viability of the Start, Stop, Continue teaching evaluation method. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 59(1), 60–69. https://doi.org/10.1080/14703297.2020.1810099
Klenowski, V. (2016). Excellence in university assessment: learning from award-winning practice, by David Carless. Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice, 24(4), 506–508. https://doi-org.proxy.library.nyu.edu/10.1080/0969594X.2016.1162135