Providing meaningful feedback - at a distance . . .

"The two words information and communication are often used interchangeably, but they signify quite different things. Information is giving out; communication is getting through." - Sydney Harris

Part of teaching, whether face-to-face or at a distance, concerns feedback, and instructors have a variety of opportunities to provide feedback.

Let's explore providing effective feedback on assignments...at a distance.

I am one of those instructors who feels that if an assignment is worth assigning, worth the student taking his or her time to complete, then it is worth my time to provide effective feedback, feedback that helps the student grow and learn, perhaps changing their behaviors and hopefully applying my comments to future work.

Why do we provide feedback?

Letting students know what they are doing well can encourage students and help build their confidence. Feedback can also help students diagnose their strengths and weaknesses, keeping them on track to meet course and unit objectives. Ideally, students take the feedback we offer use it to improve future performance. From a practical viewpoint, I am not sure that happens very often. Feedback should be constructive, specific, and lean, focusing on something a student can change about his or her work...but also focusing on the strengths - what is good about that work we want to help them strengthen.

Face-to-face classes provide many opportunities for feedback, ranging from in-class discussion to students dropping by during office hours. Online courses offer different opportunities for feedback: email, instant messages, google hangouts, discussion forums, blogs, video-conferences......and the ever present...paper.

To me, feedback is even more important in an online course where students can feel isolated and unsure of themselves and their work without regular contact and feedback. Writing a paper - any paper - is a personal venture, one where the student tries to give voice to his or her ideas on a specific topic, pulling from the resources to support their voice. Continual, immediate, and detailed feedback is crucial to student success (Gaytan & McEwen, 2010).  In addition, feedback must be personalized to the student and to the assignment.  Two students submitting the same assignment deserve feedback tailored to them, to their needs, and to the assignment. Rubrics are great to guide a student when preparing an assignment, and serve as a great starting point for faculty when beginning the feedback process, but individualization is important

How do we provide feedback?
Feedback can be provided by peers and instructor, by phone, written, orally, video, face-to-face ...or any combination of these. Rubrics can be used individually or combined with several of these items.


When do we provide feedback?
This one is tricky. Not every assignment needs to be graded, but feedback does not necessarily include grading.  Feedback does need to be provided in a timely manner and should explore both positives and negatives of the task, given early enough for the student to benefit when completing subsequent tasks.

My journey with providing feedback

I have begun combining feedback techniques: written with video ... using several layers of feedback.

Huh?

Perhaps I should provide a wee bit of my feedback/grading history.

Originally I taught English courses and writing, and even though my curricular assignments have changed over the years, I often find myself still teaching writing...or some component of writing.  One of the constant concerns - and I do not believe this one has been solved yet - is that students seldom carry over learning from one course to another - with regards to writing. I would start with college freshmen who could not form cohesive paragraphs and by the end of a course they not only wrote well-developed paragraphs, but they could write the vestigial 5-paragraph essay, well-developed and with few punctuation errors. Second semester the same students signed up for part 2 of the course, and we were back at the beginning!

I knew they knew better!

THEY knew they knew better!

hmmmmm... obviously what I thought was working wasn't....  so... time for a change.... All English courses at that institution were organized the same way, using a multiple draft approach with multiple revisions and per feedback as well as instructor feedback.  Students left those classes well prepared to write well.

Yet, they didn't.

It was as though they had never ever written a paper, had never taken an English course.... everything was forgotten.

The issue was one of transfer of knowledge.  Students had a difficult time transferring what they learned in one course to another. A history faculty member and I hit upon a plan: we would co-teach an American history course that required formal papers. He taught the history, and together we reviewed the paper requirements, and we applied the revision/multiple draft approach that all English faculty used....   Students would receive two grades on their paper - one in history on the content, and one from me on the writing. Each paper was graded twice, and many earned A/D or A/C...great history content, not-so-great on the writing skills.  So I asked them why. Their response: "It was a history class.  Writing doesn't matter in a history class."

I have yet to solve this issue because students still do not often take the learning with them, not the writing learning..... so .... I still play with feedback methods, hoping to eventually hit upon the right combination

My current approach

Time to return to where I was: I have begun combining feedback techniques: written with video ... using several layers of feedback, breaking the feedback down into chunks. Snagit and Camtasia help me create this feedback, referred to as screencasting (Seror, 2012).


Let's suppose I have a paper/written assignment to grade.

          Step 1:  I read the paper from beginning to end, making no marks, just  to gain a sense of the submission...and to decide where to go from there.

          Step 2: Then I begin making comments on the paper.  Currently, I pull the paper up directly in the gradebook in CANVAS and insert comments there..but there is more to it than this..I note patterns of errors. Writing errors tend to fall into groups, creating a pattern of errors. A person may have trouble, for example, with commas, and an instructor looking carefully at those comma errors will notice a pattern of the same type of mistake being made repeatedly. When looked at individually, one error could be made  a dozen times, looking overwhelming to the student. Once a student understands he or she  really only made ONE error, not 20, the student is in a better place to learn how to correct that one error. So the first time that error is made, I highlight it in a specific color,  and insert a comment giving the name of the error and a url reference. The next time I see that error, I highlight it again in the same color. (More to come!) I use other tools provided through CANVAS - comments, text, and strikeout.  As I reach other errors - perhaps a sentence structure or clarity issue - I circle or highlight them, making a brief notation in the comment box.

         Step 3: Once I have done this with the entire paper, I pull up the video capture function in SnagIt. Jing would also work although videos are limited to 5 minutes..  This feature allows me to do a video capture of the screen as I talk through the feedback process, making comments and explaining comments in more detail - holding a conversation of sorts (albeit one-sided) ....much like having students look over my shoulder as I grade. Students receive a pdf of their annotated paper and a copy of their video file.

Following is an excerpt from one of my feedback videos:




I love the conversation approach to providing feedback.  I feel as though I can be more "me" with my students which is a very important component is developing presence.  I need to confess that I am somewhat stodgy in my approach, despite my use of technology. I avoid criticizing the student and focus instead on the work itself. Kudos ARE the student ("You did a great job with...").  Improvement-based feedback on items that need strengthening or changing always refer to the item, NOT the student ("This paragraph needs to be developed more fully" or "This sentence is unclear"). I keep kudos personal, yet the changes to be made are not personal.  After all, I am giving feedback on the paper, not on the student. Semantics?  Perhaps, but it is something with which I am comfortable. I also tend to layer the feedback moving from positive to negative and back to positive...repeatedly.

This video capture method works with grading video presentations as well.  I watch part of a presentation while having the video capture turned on, then pause and reflect upon what I just heard.

Does this work better than other methods of provding feedback?

I have no idea.

Students seem to like it, though, and send me messages telling me they appreciate the time I spent with their papers and that they felt as though I really read them. they also mention enjoying the personalization of the feedback as though we were chatting about the paper. some have even responded with an audio file :-) Research suggests adult students are more likely to pay attention to feedback when instructors demonstrate they have carefully considered the students' ideas on paper, finding it more helpful when instructors combine encouraging comments with specific comments about their written work (Eyres, et al., 2001). Students also prefer instructors to provide specific guidance (Treglia, 2009). When I review earlier papers, I realize that, in many cases, I am not making the same comment, so something seems to be clicking...

I guess time will tell....

References

Eyres, S. J., Hatch, D. H., Turner, S. B., & West, M. (2001). Doctoral students' responses to writing critique: Messages for teachers. Journal of Nursing Education, 40(4), 149-155.  

Gaytan, G., & McEwen, B. C. (2010). Effective online instructional and assessment strategies. American Journal of Distance Education, 21(3), 117-132.

Seror, J. (2012). In the classroom: Show me! Enhanced feedback through screencasting technology.    TESL Canada Journal, 30(1), 104-111.

Treglia, M. O. (2009) . Teacher-written commentary in college writing composition: How does it impact student revisions? Composition Studies, (37)(1), 67-86.

"Communication leads to community, that is, to understanding, intimacy and mutual valuing." - Rollo May