1. Remember the purpose of the assignment.
2. Remember the rubric, utilize it, and evaluate the assignment accordingly.
3. Focus on student success, helping them to know how to achieve change through learning in future assignments.
Samuel,
Thanks for your input again through this forum. You have brought several key components of feedback up for discussion. Feedback must be communicated with students in a manner they understand. This can be done in a variety of ways.
Starting with something positive sets the tone for the feedback. Connecting the feedback to the objectives helps the students understand why they are doing what they are doing and how well they are achieving in the class. This can be done easily by including objectives directly into the rubrics you use.
Again, nice job and thanks for your input. It will benefit all of those in this forum.
I feel that the most three important things to remember when developing meaningful feedback for assignments/projects are--
1. The more specific the feedback, the more learning and growth the student will experience. Also, the instructor whould remember that the purpose of feedback is to provide learning not to justify a grade.
2. The medium of feedback should be determined by the type of assignment/project.
3. Last but not least – giving and receiving feedback is an opportunity to connect and strengthen a learning community.
Meaningful feedback must be timely. Students need to receive feedback as soon as possible in order to associate it with the lessons tied to the assessment/project.
The feedback must focus primarily on the learning objectives but it should also pique student interest to learn more and deeper. This will create a scaffold for future lessons or modules.
The feedback must be constructive and positive. It must serve as a motivator to the student and not as another barrier or hurdle to learning.
Beth & Krystal,
Glad you are using rubrics. I have students self-evaluate using the rubric before they can turn in the assignment. I do peer-evaluation the same way. So, you can require either self- or peer-evaluation and they have to submit the assignment and rubric at the same time.
They'll have to read the rubric then. . . ;-)
Beth, do your students actually review the rubrics before assignments? I've had the problem of my students not reading through the assignments or rubrics in detail. I even call the rubrics "Cheat Sheets" to try to entice them but they still don't take the time to read through the specifics. It can be a little frustrating when you present and give all that you can (outside of doing the assignments yourself) and they still don't take the time to apply what you've given.
Krystal,
Thank you for your input. Youare right on target. The feedback should help students learn more and move forward in their learning. This is hard sometimes as students to now carefully review what instructors return to them. So, it's important to help them understand the importance of reading and thinking about the feedback and how it pertains to their learning.
Providing positive feedback in a detailed, meaningful way is one way to do that. It's helps set the tone that the instructor cares about their learning.
Nice job!
This component of the training has really enlightened me on the importance of feedback, the types of feedback, and how to improve the feedback that I provide. These are the three most important things that I must remember:
1. The most important thing that the feedback to an assignment should do is provide an opportunity for the student to learn more about a topic they missed or misunderstood. Reading that part in the training was very eye-opening to me as it made me realize that I was previously justifying the grade they received.
2. Also of importance is the tone that is used when providing the feedback. Many online students are already a little uncertain of themselves and curious about their facilitators. Because they can’t see us and many haven’t had conversations with us, they may not be able to determine the tone in which we are providing feedback. So it’s important that the feedback doesn’t appear to be critical, harsh, derogatory, or any other manner that may make them withdraw.
3. Lastly, it’s important that detailed feedback is provided. Just to tell them that there was more information needed doesn’t suffice. There should be examples provided of the types of things that needed to be covered in their assignments.
Peter,
You are correct: immediate, positive and it should help improve learning. What you have to define for students is what is "immediate." Immediate for me is within 24 hours. Some online instructors indicate 48 hours is immediate.
It's important to let your students know what is immediate so they don't expect feedback in 10 minutes. ;-)
Thanks.
It should be immediate. It should be positive in tone. Students should learn how to improve from it.
Thomas,
Thanks for your input. Providing timely feedback that is meaningful helps students improve their learning. When using a rubric, please include the learning outcomes/objectives in the rubric as well so students can connect what they are doing to the expectations.
Nice job.
When providing feedback to the students I must ensure it is timely, measurable, and supportive. The feedback needs to get back to the student near the completion of the task to have the most impact. The objectives should still be fresh in their minds and this will allow them to associate the feedback to the work they just completed. I believe the feedback has to be measurable so they can see where they can improve and what is expected. Utilizing a grading rubric not only allows the student to see where they scored and what they need to improve in but can also be used to show the students what is expected from an assignment in order to score above expectations. If the feedback is not supportive in nature the student can become discouraged or defensive, this does not act as an aid in the learning cycle. Positive criticism and supportive attitude goes a long way in keeping the student active in the course.
John,
Again, nice job. Being consistent in your grading and helping students understand what is expected of them is essential. Helping them learn from their mistakes by finding their mistakes is key to many different types of subjects.
Nice job.
George,
Feedback, feedback, feedback. . .you are right. It's so important. As you communicate the objectives also include them in the grading rubric. This helps students tie what they are learning to why they are learning it.
Nice job.
1.Timeliness of the feedback is important.
2.Complete and accurate feedback is important. As a mathematics instructor I require the students to show their work, so I can find their errors which lends itself to complete feedback. I will in some cases provide completely worked keys to assignments.
3.Be consistent across all the students. In grading assessments in the classroom, I grade a page at a time to ensure a more consistent grading.
The objectives of the assignment must be clear, and then the feedback covering the assignment tied to those objectives. What I mean here is that the assignment should be meant to accomplish certain of the learning objectives for the course and ultimately (cumulatively) the Terminal Course Objectives.
Feedback should be accentuated with the positive but weaknesses should also be identified. This would be the sandwich approach in giving feedback where the instructor starts and ends with positive points that can be applied to solving issues that the student has with the assignment. The feedback should be specific and, obviously, personalized to that student since his/her strengths will be instrumental in overcoming weaknesses. (This could be in the ability to fully conduct objective research, for example.)
Feedback should be consistent. Herein are the value and the utility of rubrics. Students should be graded fairly on a level playing field. The term objective is operative here although there is room for some subjective criticism of a student’s work especially when the work is exceptional. I have battled with rubrics to apply KISS but sometimes have gotten carried away in their complexity in wanting to cover all of the bases. I tend to err towards giving too much feedback.
Bill,
Nice job again. Thank you. You are right on track. The point you bring up about "not criticize" is important. . .constructive criticism may need to be used, but just to criticize students' work is not helpful.
Thinking about the method of feedback, as you note, is important too. It is also important to let students know how quickly you will return papers and provide feedback.
Thank you.
The three most important things to remember when developing meaningful feedback for assignments/projects integrated into an online course are: (1) the purpose of the feedback is to help the student, not criticize, (2) the method of feedback must be chosen to match the student and situation, and (3) the feedback must be timely and appropriate.
- Bill Lembke
George,
You hit on three very important words in your response immediately: prompt, rubrics, and specific. With appropriate rubrics, it is easy also to provide consistent feedback.
You are correct in that the rubric must be easy to understand from the student's point of view, yet comprehensive enough to be a substantial grading too. I also put my learning objectives in the rubric so that students can see how the objectives of the course relate to specific assignments/projects.
Thanks for your input.
Feedback that is prompt, rubrics and specifics.I have been using grading rubics for several years now. It helps to make the instructor and classroom more effective because it provides the student clear and concise criteria for which they are being graded, It is a more quantitative grading, so students may perceive the grading as objective and fair. I generally, do not have more than 5 columns and 5 rows in my rubrics. The danger is that the instructor doesn’t want to create a rubric that is so complex that students may not follow it easily.
