Provide feedback
Provide meaningful feedback on student work to enhance learning and academic performance.
As part of the What Works Well in Online Teaching (WWWOT) series, Austina Fong shares ideas, strategies, and tools she uses to provide feedback in online courses.
As part of the What Works Well in Online Teaching (WWWOT) series, Bret Rickman shares how he uses Google surveys to provide feedback to students in his courses.
Practices
Periodic substantive personalized feedback is an essential component of the learning process. Effective feedback may take a variety of forms. Here are the essential practices for this category.
Essential Practices
- Provide clear instructions for students on where to find feedback.
- Provide substantive personalized feedback which includes strategies for improvement and growth.
- Provide feedback in time for students to apply strategies to the current and future activities.
- Post grades in a timely fashion, typically within a week of the due date.
High-Impact Practices for Continuous Improvement
- Provide personalized feedback to students through video, audio, or images in addition to text.
- Utilize a variety of feedback methods, including individual as well as to the whole-class.
- Practice equitable grading.
Examples for any online course
- Use rubrics, text, audio, or video to provide feedback on discussions, assignments, or quizzes.
- Utilize grading strategies for equitable grading, such as a four-point scale, contract grading, and student-generated rubrics.
- Create a brief screencast showing students how to access assignment feedback and grades.
- Provide instructions for finding instructor feedback in syllabus or within assignments: To view feedback, click on Grades from the navigation bar. Click on View Graded Rubric for additional feedback. For more information, visit Viewing instructor feedback for Assignments & Discussions and Viewing Quizzes Attempts.
- Create a screencast that summarizes student feedback to acknowledge shared challenges and strengths among learners.
Examples for online courses with scheduled meetings
- Provide live rubric walkthroughs for upcoming or recently graded assignments.
- Use a live screen share to demonstrate how to revise an example, showing step by step how to apply feedback and improve the work. When using real student work—even anonymously—student permission should be obtained before sharing.
- Facilitate a peer review session where students use a shared rubric or checklist in breakout rooms to give and receive feedback on an in-progress assignment.
- Conduct “feedback workshops” in breakout rooms where students apply feedback to a sample task.
- Offer feedback during a live session where students can anonymously submit a question about a concept or assignment, and you address it in real-time for the benefit of the whole class.
- Use polling or reaction tools to gauge understanding of feedback points shared in class.
- Invite students to ask clarifying questions about their feedback during live office hours or at the end of class.
Resources
Enhancing Regular and Substantive Interaction
- Regular and Substantive Interaction Dept. of Education Regulations and Definitions
- Regular and Substantive Interaction: Feedback and Interaction
- Optimizing High-Quality Digital Learning Experiences: A Playbook for Faculty: Instructional Strategies, p. 26
Tips for Providing Effective and Personalized Feedback
- General Principles for Effective Feedback
- Tips for providing personalized feedback
- Co-Creating Rubrics with Students
Tools for Delivering Feedback
- VoiceThread: PCC Instructional Support Page
- Record a Screen Capture Using Kaltura Capture
- How to Use Annotations in D2L Brightspace
- Creating a Survey in D2L Brightspace