This content was published: February 2, 2024. Phone numbers, email addresses, and other information may have changed.
Support Student Learning and Belonging by Varying Your Feedback Strategies
Posted by anne.grey
Presented By:
- Gretchen Gebhardt, Online Learning and Part-Time Geology and General Science Faculty
- Greg Kaminski, Online Learning
- Paul Montone, Part-Time English Faculty and Online Learning
- James Pepe, Instructional Technology Specialist at Sylvania
- David Vasquez, Instructional Technology Specialist at Cascade.
Summary
This Anderson Conference session explores ways instructors can vary their feedback strategies to support student learning, connection, and belonging. The presenters demonstrate approaches ranging from written comments and rubrics to annotations, audio, and video feedback, while considering the strengths and limitations of each method.
The session begins with text-based feedback and emphasizes that feedback can do more than tell students whether an answer is correct or incorrect. Personalized explanations can help students understand mistakes, review key concepts, prepare for another attempt, and feel that an instructor is actively present in their learning. Instructors can also use individual discussion responses, private comments, or global feedback to recognize student contributions and encourage deeper conversation.
Participants explore several options for providing feedback directly on student work. D2L annotation tools allow instructors to highlight, underline, draw, and add notes to submitted files. Google Docs can support comments and real-time conversations with students, while handwritten digital feedback can recreate some of the experience of marking papers with a pen. Rubrics provide another option for making expectations clear and giving feedback connected to specific criteria.
The presenters also demonstrate how audio and video can make feedback more personal. Hearing an instructor’s voice or seeing their face can help humanize an online learning experience, communicate tone, and strengthen connection. Audio and video may be especially useful when responding to sensitive topics or when a written response may not communicate encouragement, empathy, or nuance as effectively. The session emphasizes that feedback videos do not need to be polished or perfect. Natural delivery can help students see their instructors as human and may encourage students to take their own learning risks.
The session includes practical demonstrations of D2L, Kaltura Capture, Video Note, VoiceThread, rubrics, and annotation tools. Participants also see feedback from the student perspective, including where students locate overall feedback, rubric results, inline annotations, discussion comments, and quiz feedback. By varying feedback methods and choosing strategies that fit the assignment and student needs, instructors can create more meaningful interactions while supporting both learning and belonging.
Slides: Support Student Learning and Belonging by Varying Your Feedback Strategies
Presentation outcomes
- Identify reasons for providing personalized and in-depth feedback to students.
- Compare text, rubric, annotation, audio, and video approaches to student feedback.
- Consider the benefits and limitations of different feedback strategies for different assignments and student needs.
- Use feedback to strengthen instructor presence, student connection, and a sense of belonging.
- Explore D2L tools for providing individual, global, inline, rubric, and quiz feedback.
- Consider audio and video feedback as ways to communicate tone, encouragement, and more personal responses.
- Explore Kaltura Capture, Video Note, VoiceThread, Google Docs, and digital annotation tools for providing feedback.
- Understand how students locate and interact with feedback in D2L.