Why should I complete these surveys?

When it comes to your learning experience, you are the expert.

You know best what supports your learning and what doesn't. By completing the Course Experience Surveys and sharing this feedback, you are helping to improve the quality of SFU courses and instructors for future students.

In fact, you have probably already experienced course improvements that were made because of the feedback provided by past students!

Your feedback is used by:

• instructors to understand which parts of their course supported your learning and which parts they should consider changing in the future.
• academic leaders to improve course design, adjust resources and highlight issues that require follow-up. 
• the SFU community to acknowledge outstanding teaching (i.e., awards).
• departments for consideration in regular faculty review, including tenure and promotion decisions.

Instructors and administrators do not receive your feedback until after the course is completed. If you need support with a course issue right away, visit our help page for more information.

How instructors are using your feedback

Here are some examples of how some instructors are using your feedback from the Course Experience surveys to improve their courses.

“Two big changes I made in my course were to create really comprehensive slide decks that students could use to prepare for exams and to develop audio recordings explaining some of the more difficult concepts that students could review before class. These small shifts have really helped students learn better in my course.”
— Shafik Bhalloo, BUS 233: Introduction to Business Law and Ethics

“My students said they were finding the course too difficult. I didn't remove any assignments. Instead, I used the earlier assignments to identify and correct common mistakes so that all students have a solid foundation to perform at their best in the later assignments when more marks are at stake. It seems to be working; they're less stressed around marks and more focused on learning.”
— Shivanand Balram, GEOG 255: Geographical Information Science I

“One thing I changed was to include more opportunities for students to practice their presentation skills in a safe environment before they have to do their graded presentations--and they really seem to appreciate that.” 
—Samantha Seto, BUS 421: Accounting Theory

“One of the things students complained about was too much reading, so I cut back on those. That helped a lot in terms of whether students felt it was an appropriate level of difficulty. But the feedback also showed that the students regarded one project as needing a higher weight in their overall grade, and conversely, that the final research paper should have less of a weight. Shifting these weights 5 or 10% here and there, and also adding in a few more percentage points for different short exercises, made a huge difference in the overall student experience.”
— Michael Filimowicz, IAT 210: Introduction to Game Design