Feedback on your feedback ('vastapalaute')
Thank you very much for the feedback you provided through Webropol's Course Feedback Survey (see below), through Peer & Self Assessment on your group work (see below) as well as during our last Contact Session (incl. your group's joint Take-Home Messages from entire course: do check them out here)! The response rate for the Webropol survey was also delightfully high i.e. 77% (17 out of 22 students) - great!
In general, the course seemed to work well, with a great majority of respondents to the Course Feedback Survey finding that the course was generally very food or excellent. Similarly, great majority felt that the teaching methods used in the course supported your learning (see figures below). Also the work load seemed to work, with 14 respondents i.e. over 80% feeling that the course required the right amount of time for its 5 credits (with remaining 18% feeling the course required slightly more time). Your views on group work (as part of Peer & Self Assessment) were also mainly positive, with many of you finding that group work benefited your learning and that your group supported and enhanced your learning (while there were also naturally some challenges: see below).
Also your views on course assessment (question 13) were mainly positive, although some of you had some reservations regarding Self & Peer Assessment: thank you for sharing those! While we understand the possible challenges related to it, we find it still an efficient way a) to differentiate the potentially differing inputs for the grouip work, b) to gain direct feedback on your group working skills, and c) to reflect your own role in the group. For these reasons, we are most likely to keep Self & Peer Assessment as part of the course also in the future, although we will consider revising it based on your feedback.
You also gave lot of more detailed comments regarding the course: these can be read from the Webropol Report below. It was particularly nice to learn that the mix of different learning methods (e.g. Reading Material + Preparatory Reading Circles, Take-Home Messages and Case Studies) seemed to work well, with most of you appreciating the variety of views they provided on the complex topic of governance. Related to this, it was good to see that Case Studies -that form a key part of course assignments- were appreciated by you and a great majority found that it supported your learning during the course (see diagram below).
Then some examples on more detailed comments. Many of you found the Reading Material useful to deepen your understanding - although many also noted that some of the material was too heavy/difficult (indeed, one of the intended learning outcomes was to learn to read -and understand!- scientific articles). Our great Guest Lecturers also got plenty of praise for providing practical context for governance: we agree, and this is thus definitely an element we will thus keep also in the future. Also reflection provided by Take-Home Messages seemed to work - or as put by one of you: "Writing main learning points after every lecture supported learning although I was a bit sceptic about that before the course started."
There were also useful suggestions for improvements. Some improvements were related to getting more and quicker feedback on e.g. Reading Circle Briefs and Draft Case Study Report: this is good point and we'll try to address this better next time (although it is primarily to do with limited time we unfortunately have available for these tasks). Some of you also suggested that we could mix groups more, using for example different groupings during the sessions and even having the Reading Circles in different groups each time. This is an interesting idea, and it might well be that we try this next year (although there is also a benefit for meeting with the same group each time). There was also a practical suggestion that the key points from each article could be summarised by the lecturers after the Reading Circle: this is a great idea, and we'll implement it next time! There were also some good ideas on how to get the Case Study up and running more quickly, including an idea to draft a short project plan for the Case Study in the beginning: this could indeed be implemented as well next year!
Overall, it was really useful and nice to hear and read your views on the course and its different assignments: this helps us to revise and improve the course further. Also, reading your detailed feedback also shows that it helps you to reflect and synthesise your learning: this way feedback also benefits yourself by putting your learning into a broader context.
Best,
Marko, Amy & Lauri.