Rebecca,
Your post emphasizing on feedback should be course objective, specific, meaningful and have positive tone is excellent. The way you have explained the importance and why makes your points stronger.
Brinda
Robin,
Showing examples of what we expect is an excellent idea. It makes instructors expectations clear. “Picture is more than thousand words†similarly an example will serve in understanding the expectations much easier and sets students focus.
Brinda
Hi Chris,
I teach Math. Though I some time give the answers in Math, I guess as you mentioned the feedback should challenge the students to think and work out the problems again. If the student does this, he/she will never forget the material. The feedback should guide towards the solution and should not be solution itself. Way to go!
Brinda
When developing meaningful feedback, some of my many strategies are:
1) Take time and prepare a detailed feedback for every question in the assignment. Then, modifying this prepared feedback to individual needs makes the feedback more detailed, effective and less time consuming. Try to be more positive, encouraging and motivating.
2) While assigning the assignments, during each unit, instructors should provide students with rubrics containing expectations, guidelines and a detailed points break down for every question in the assignments
3) When dealing with the entire class, set high expectations, express enthusiasm. When dealing with an individual, be sensitive and flexible.
Thank you!
Brinda
David,
I like the way you organized your answers. This leads me to believe that your online course is probably organized as well. ;-)
I also like they way you tied all of your answers together. Feedback is important and should be tied to objectives and be timely. Thanks!
Rachel,
Correct. Simply providing feedback is not enough. It must be meaningful and provide students with feedback to help them excel in the course.
Assessment is not something you do to your students, but with your students.
Excellent.
Martin,
It's important to consider timing and explain the timing to the students. How quick can you really provide feedback. Many online instructors use the rule of 24 or 48 hours. But, communicate whatever your rule is to the students.
Begin positive is essential and making students feel as though they are getting individual feedback is important. This is difficult when the online classes get really big, but try your best.
Thanks!
Chris,
Good to know. Consistency is key as well. Being consistent in how often and when you provide feedback is helpful. Thanks!
The three most important elements of feedback are:
1. Specific feedback is important. While generic feedback may provide some focus for learning, specific feedback will create the most opportunity for students to learn.
2. The feedback should be tied to course objectives. For example, in a writing course, feedback evaluating the content of an essay may be less important than evaluation of punctuation and grammar.
3. Feedback should be timely. Feedback provided early provides students with a greater opportunity to learn compared to feedback provided late.
Feedback needs to be meaningful. Guide the student down the path they need to take if they ventured down the wrong path or encourage them if they are on the correct path already. Timely feedback is critical. If it is week 3 and you are finally just providing feedback on week 1 and the student did it incorrectly, chances are they did the next 2 weeks wrong also. Constructve feedback you need to steer students down the correct path, but you need to do it in a way that doesn't crush them or hurt their self-esteem.
Every post I read over have great points and I agree with them.
I feel the 3 most important things to remember are:
timing (quick responce)
tone (positive)
individule (personal feedback, not to the masses)
We also use the between 24-48 hours. We expect our instructors to respond on the earlier part of that.
-Chris
Chris,
Assessment is not somee we do "to" our students, but "with" our students. It should encourage them to learn more not to quit learning. When teaching online time is of the essence, but take my word on this - if you give feedback immediately, they will expect it immediately all the time.
Set rules in your syllabus about how often feedback will be provided. My rule of thumb is within 24 or 48 hours, depending on the course and course content.
Thank you for your input.
Hi Dr. Crews,
I believe that feedback should be: 1) Rapid, it must be timely so that the students still understand and remember why they made the choices they made; 2) must show relevance to the objectives of the course or the lesson, students need to connect any assignment to real-life situations; 3) Feedback must challenge the student to think, isn't critical thinking one of the main goals we all have?
I think I would also want to add that feedback must be positive, and motivating - we want to maintain a students motivation and positive attitude, we don't want them to be afraid of assessments.
-Chris
Robin,
Your #3 reminds me. . .always give the rubric when you give the assignment. Students should know what is expected of them. There should be no surprises.
Thanks for the reminder!
John ,
I lvoe "teachable moments!" The way you describe the feedback in these three statements provide insight on how important feedback it. Nice job.
Thank you.
Three items to be integrated in the feedback evaluation:
1. Overall performance, include subject matter, grammar, layout.
2. Level of student experience. If its a first time then keep it at that level.
3.Show examples of what is expected. Use a Rubric but also an example for visual learners.
The three most important things for feedback that I read in this module were;
1. Connecting feedback on the work to learning outcomes of the course. I think students want to understand how the assessment ties in to what they are learning in the course and is not just "busy-work".
2. Feedback should be specific and detailed. Being very specific about areas that are not done according to directions and rubric are important to include. I did like the point in the module that said this is not just rationale for the grade but points out what needs to be improved.
3. Feedback should be positive and include ideas for improvement. Often when I grade papers online I spend time saying what is correct and give insights about how it could be better. I think the assessment is part of the learning process and is a "teachable moment".
Billie
I also am impressed with the 40 years of experience! I share your impression of how the rubric is a tool that helps both the instructor and the student. Clearly stating expectations improves outcomes.
John
Kim,
You bring good points to the discussion. It is definitely important for students to under what they did wrong AND why it is wrong. That will help them understand how not to make the same error in the future.
I'm not sure what you mean by "the same amount of feedback to everyone" because some students will need more feedback than others depending on their content understanding and abilities.
Thanks.
