Overview:
Tool: TerpAI*
Time: 15 min to design; ongoing to use
What you need: basic information about your course
How to do it:
- Open TerpAI. You do not need to upload any documents for this activity.
Paste the prompt below, filling in your course details. Be specific about what you actually want to learn from students — the more specific your concern, the more useful the survey questions will be.
"I teach a [course type, level, size] course. I want to run a brief mid-semester check-in that gives me actionable information — not just satisfaction scores. My specific concern right now is [describe your concern — e.g., 'students seem lost after we moved to quantitative methods' or 'participation has dropped sharply']. Design a 5-question survey that will help me understand whether the issue is clarity, pacing, workload, or something else."
- Take TerpAI's draft questions and revise them in your own voice. Compare TerpAI's output to the questions in TLTC's Mid-Semester Evaluation of College Teaching (MSECT).
- Select the final questions you want to ask students. Create a short Google Form and share it with students during weeks 5–7 of the semester.
- Close the loop: take 5 minutes in class to tell students what you heard and what you will or will not change in response. This step is what makes mid-semester feedback meaningful.
Notes:
A mid-semester check-in is only useful if you close the loop with students — sharing what you heard and explaining what you will and will not change. Without that step, it can erode, rather than build, trust.
The TLTC's Academic Innovation team offers a facilitated Small Group Instructional Diagnosis (SGID) as a richer alternative to survey-based feedback. Connect with us to learn more.
*We encourage you to exclusively use UMD-approved GenAI tools, which are deployed in alignment with institutional security and compliance requirements.