Provide feedback on teaching and course units
As a student at Macquarie, you have the opportunity to provide feedback about your learning experiences.
Staff may seek feedback from you in a number of ways, including written and/or verbal feedback during class or in iLearn forums, or through consultations with you outside class times. Another common way to obtain your feedback is via online surveys managed by Macquarie University’s Teaching Evaluation for Development Service (TEDS).
After all, we provide you with feedback on your work, so it’s only fair that we give you an opportunity to reciprocate!
Teaching and course unit surveys
Student feedback surveys give you an opportunity to review, evaluate and comment on your experience of learning. We would also like you to suggest ways of improving the design and delivery of our units to engage you and encourage you to learn. Constructive comments and suggestions are particularly valuable to your teachers and unit convenors and help them to enhance their practice and your learning experience.
How your feedback will be used
Staff use the information you provide about your experience in their class or unit to guide and develop their teaching and unit design. They may also use summary reports to support their professional learning, performance review and career progression. Departments and Faculties may use aggregated survey data for a range of quality monitoring and assurance purposes.
Feedback confidentiality
Your survey responses are treated confidentially. Your anonymity is assured in a number of ways:
- You cannot be identified in any survey reports provided to your teachers or unit convenors.
- Survey reports are only released to staff after your grades have been finalised and released to you.
- No reports are provided for surveys with fewer than five responses.
Note: When making comments in your surveys, be mindful of your obligations under the Student Code of Conduct and Acceptable Use of IT Resources Policy, and avoid the use of any discriminatory, threatening or abusive language in your survey responses.
Types of surveys
We offer two types of surveys: teaching surveys and unit surveys.
Teaching surveys
Note: To access teaching feedback surveys, you must complete class registration for each of your units as part of your enrolment.
These surveys focus on your experience of a specific staff member’s teaching.
In answering a teaching survey, focus on the teacher’s practices and behaviours, including:
- how they engage you
- how they communicate with you
- how they encourage you to learn.
Unit surveys
These surveys focus on your experience in a specific unit. All coursework units are surveyed every time they are offered, in each attendance mode.
In answering a unit survey, rather than thinking about the staff involved, focus on the design of the unit, including its:
- organisation
- information
- learning activities and assessment
- ability to engage you in learning.
Other surveys
These surveys may have a broader scope, for example, in 2020 we ran two surveys about students’ experience of online learning in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. You may also receive invitations to complete surveys that the Australian Government requires the University to administer – respond to these invitations too!
Invitations and links to complete TEDS surveys will be sent to you in two ways:
- An email to your student email address (from teachingandunitsurveys@mq.edu.au)
- Via the 'Student feedback surveys' block on the right-hand side of your iLearn homepage, or below your list of units, if you are using a mobile device (after logging in to iLearn)
We encourage you to take the time to complete any student feedback surveys you are offered – we do take your input seriously! It is very important for our teachers and unit convenors to receive your feedback so that we can continue to enhance the student experience at Macquarie.
Contact us
For more information about student feedback surveys, visit our teaching and unit evaluation page or contact teds@mq.edu.au.