Informations for students

Teaching is an art form. At the end of the term, your teachers look forward to receiving your feedback.  

Your constructive feedback helps: 

• Highlight elements or practices to be retained. 
• Boost your teacher’s confidence and motivation. 
• Give weight to suggestions for improvement. Receiving feedback that includes positive elements helps the recipient be more open to the suggestions for improvement. 
• Improve courses, course content, and teaching practices. Each term, many changes are made to courses and teaching approaches based on feedback received during the previous term. 
• Enhance your academic program and, by extension, the value of your own diploma. 

Your teachers truly need your feedback, but the School also benefits because evaluations help provide accountability for teaching quality, which is a requirement for international management accreditation. It also provides useful information for the promotion process and teaching assignment renewals. 

Answering the questionnaire by adding comments is not enough. For a comment to be truly helpful to the person processing the information (teacher or member of the administration), comments must be constructive. 

• Avoid personal attacks 
  Give feedback on a person’s teaching, not on the person. Comments about their personal characteristics, such as how they dress, are out of place and unbefitting of a future professional or manager. Be kind. 
  
  If you had a very negative experience, be sure to go back and reread and perhaps explain your comments in a few hours or days. You can make changes to the evaluation up until the deadline. 
  
  
• Be specific and give details to clarify your comments, both positive and negative.  
  “This is a great course! One of my favourite courses at HEC!!”  
  This comment would be more useful if it included details about what you appreciated and think should continue. For example, “The course was really well structured, with lots of varied, hands-on activities that helped me understand the material.” 
  
  “The teacher is not interested in the students.” 
  It is more useful to consider why you think this way and to include details the person can use to improve their approach. For example, “The teacher doesn’t greet us and leaves during the entire break, so it’s hard to talk to her.” 
  
  
• Critique what the teacher has the power to change  
  They are not responsible for the classroom, the schedule, or the mode of instruction. Be sure to clearly distinguish between what is part of the course (as described on the form) and what is the responsibility of the teacher. For some courses, the teacher has little or no control over course design, content, or evaluations. Make sure your comments are in the right place! 
  
  
• Pay attention to the tone of your comments. Ask yourself how you would feel if you received such a comment.  
  People generally are not open to a suggestion if they perceive it as an attack. Many teachers are apprehensive about reading teaching evaluations. Be kind to the human being who will receive your feedback! 

Just as voting is a citizen’s duty, taking a few minutes to reflect and give feedback on your learning experience is your duty as a student. Because students before you took the time to complete evaluations, the next course you take will be even better than the previous version. So think of the students who come after you in the same way as those who went before you. And if the quality of your program improves, so will its reputation, as will yours once you have earned your diploma. 

Think about it! If you do it for restaurants, hotels, and the products you buy, why not give feedback for something as important as the quality of higher education in Quebec? 

The course is evaluated separately from teaching so that elements beyond the teacher’s control do not skew the results. In fact, several courses are coordinated by one person, and that person is not necessarily teaching all the groups. Course evaluation is essential for improving academic programs, so it is important to separate information about courses from information about teaching. 

The teaching evaluation form can be accessed in ZoneCours via any mobile device. If you have more than one course to evaluate, you will see them in the “Teaching evaluation“ tool.  

If your course has more than one teacher, you will be asked to evaluate both. Check the name of the person for each part of the questionnaire to avoid confusion.  

Even if you have completed the questionnaire, you can make changes up until the deadline. 

YES. All information submitted to the evaluation system is completely confidential. Teachers cannot link a questionnaire to a specific student because the answers and comments are compiled in a summary report provided to the teacher at the end of the term. However, if a comment violates the Code of conduct or other applicable rules (e.g., defamatory or discriminatory comments, threats) or reveals a risk to a person’s safety, HEC Montréal’s management reserves the right to identify the respondent and take action.

Teachers will have access to evaluation results after the deadline to submit final grades, i.e., once the term is over.

The teacher is the first person to see the evaluations and comments left on the form, once final grades have been submitted. Of course, all responses are made anonymous. However, if a comment violates the Code of conduct or other applicable rules (e.g., defamatory or discriminatory comments, threats) or reveals a risk to a person’s safety, HEC Montréal management reserves the right to identify the respondent and take action. 

The department director and program director also have access to the results so they can support teachers and continuously improve courses and programs. 

Depending on the course or program format, the questionnaire will be available one to two weeks before the last class session and before the final exam, if applicable.  If possible, your teacher will give you time in class to complete it, but you can finish it at any time. Keep in mind that you can go back to modify your evaluation until 11:59 p.m. on the due date.

soutien.ti@hec.ca or Portail TI