SET Structure and Tips for Completion

1. Think back on your impressions of all the modules and topics covered during the course. Although an opinion of a course is often formed on the basis of one’s individual impressions, try to analyze your whole journey in an integrated way - that will make your feedback more objective;

2.Compare this course with others. Think about how this course differs from all the other courses in this or previous semesters. This will help you to evaluate the course’s uniqueness, and the academic supervisor will understand how to structure the logic of the curriculum based on this data;

3. Try to explain your grades in open-ended comments. SET is anonymous, so no one will see who provided any particular score or comment. However, detailed feedback will help teachers and administration of educational programmes to understand the reasons for low or high grades. If you rate a particular criterion as low, explain why you are dissatisfied with this aspect of the course in the comments section. If a grade is high, a detailed comment can also come in handy: it will make it easier to identify potential for growth;

4. Use textual explanations of open-ended questions! These notes invite you to recall all the important elements of the course. Thus, your feedback will be more objective, and both teachers and administration will have more data to analyze.

1. Think back on all the formats in which the instructor has worked with you. As with courses, the impression of a teacher is also often made after a single interaction, e.g., after taking a test or communicating by mail. However, a teacher's work is much broader – it encompasses giving lectures, explaining assignments, discussing term paper/thesis topics and establishing a grading system. Commenting on all types of work with the teacher will make your feedback more objective, and the teacher will have an idea about what may be improved.

2. Evaluate experiments conducted by the teacher. Courses at HSE University change every year – lecturers introduce new topics, update presentations and work formats, as well as add practical units. So, it's important for them to know your reaction to the new work formats– so don't hesitate to tell them which ones worked well and which ones didn't. But don't forget to explain why!

3. Try to distinguish the role of the teacher and the course content. Not only is an instructor the author of the subject, they are also the main guide to new knowledge. Therefore, each element of the course is accompanied by a large amount of work on the teacher’s part: detailed explanations of the criteria, answers to questions and testing criteria are provided for organizing an assessable element (e.g., essay); a thematic plan is complemented by the quality of visual materials and its overall presentation. When evaluating a teacher, keep in mind their contribution to the subject – this will help them understand where they can enhance their skills and teaching methods.

4. Some instructors’ duties seem obvious but prove to be extremely complicated to them. If a teacher steadily checks all your papers within two days and manages to comment on them in detail, they must have been up all night long worrying about your work. Likewise, if there are many different assignments, your teacher must be very thoroughly preparing for each lesson and wants you to master as many skills as possible.

1. When an academic discipline involves both regular classes and taking an online course - consider how the online part contributes to the development of the course topics. Online courses can be given either to supplement topics already covered in the course or tell you about something completely new in regards to the subject. Remember exactly how the online course helped you to broaden your knowledge of the subject (e.g. providing a theoretical basis for a mainly practical course) or learn new skills. This feedback will help the instructor to understand whether the online part was useful in general and whether it should be suggested in the future.

2. Mention the quality of the online course organization in your comments. Online courses appear on different platforms with their own technical features. Share detailed feedback on how these systems work, what features they provide and how these features help (or hinder) the learning of the course topics. Your comments will help in the organization of educational programmes and assist teachers to decide whether courses from such platforms should be used in the future and how their functionality should be handled.

1. Assess how project activity has helped you in mastering your educational programme or individual curriculum. Projects are different, but they always develop some kind of skill, either applied or research-related. We recommend that you consider not only how the project has helped you to develop new skills, but also how these skills work in conjunction with your programme courses and projects.

2. Mention the organization of project activity in your comments. It's not just the skills you learn and the final product that are important for projects – it’s also the atmosphere in the team, the quality of the materials you were given to study, and the competence of task setting that are also very important. Try to be mindful of the internal aspects of project organization when filling in the relevant question. Be sure to explain your assessment in a text comment.

1. Take this question as seriously as the ones on already completed courses. SET for ongoing courses is a quick way to let the teacher and the educational programme’s administration know about problems that may be encountered in course organization, or about new topics that can help the subject become even more useful.

2. Recall the explanations of the open-ended questions on the completed courses:
«What topics or course materials did you miss? What elements of assessment, in your opinion, did not help you to effectively master the course material? What seemed unnecessary or illogical?»
You cannot give numerical scores for subjects that you haven’t completed, but you can still leave detailed comments about them. These questions can help you to structure your answer so that the teachers and administration of educational programmes take note of any growth areas in the course and manage to make necessary changes promptly.

1. Remember that the learning process is much broader than just a collection of subjects and their teachers. It encompasses the curriculum as a whole, as well as the timetable, workload, the work of the study office and information systems of HSE University – in other words, everything that should help you to study efficiently and beneficially. Be sure to comment in detail on these elements of the learning process - academic supervisors and programme managers will be able to use this data in order to understand how to improve the support system for all students.

2. As with the teachers, some obvious duties can be very difficult to perform. If the study office staff responds promptly and helps to solve your problems within 24 hours, this means your welfare is their first priority. If the academic supervisor regularly communicates with students, discusses SET results, helps you apply for academic and career internships, organizes projects for you and listens to your feedback on the learning process – it means they really care about your progress. Moreover, if you really are that well cared for, don't forget to mention it in your SET comments – this can be a great motivator for all educational programme staff to continue improving the learning process.