Giving Timely (and effective!) Feedback

If you have felt frustrated this semester about your ability to give helpful feedback to your students in a timely manner this semester, you are not alone.  When teaching online and blended classes, sometimes the sheer number of assignments being turned in — both low-stakes and high-stakes –can be overwhelming, and when we want to give good  feedback we can find ourselves short on time. Although you might be nearly finished with grading for the semester, here are some tips and strategies for giving effective and timely feedback that you can use next semester (some of which you can set up ahead of time!)

Automate your Feedback

One way to get ahead on feedback, is to set up Intelligent Agents in iCollege to automate some of your feedback. Intelligent agents can be set up to kick out a pre-written message to students based on certain criteria. For example, you can create an agent to send out a message to all students who score below a certain grade on an assessment, encouraging them to set up an appointment to talk with you, or pointing them towards specific resources to help them understand their mistakes.  You can also use them to send kudos to students who receive a high score, or to give students a nudge if they are missing and assignment.  Intelligent agents can be auto-populated with the student’s name, so the feedback will be personalized, specific, and timely. By automating this type of “engaged feedback,” you will save yourself time while at the same time giving students a sense that you are present and invested in their progress.

• • For more on how to set up intelligent agents in iCollege, visit: https://oer.gsu.edu/icollegenow/chapter/automating-communications-and-nudges/
  • To watch a video of Perimeter College professor Michael Bradley explaining how to set up and use intelligent agents, click HERE.

Personalize your Feedback

Sometimes with feedback, less can be more. Studies have shown that, in most situations, students prefer audio or video feedback on assignments (1,2), in part because it feels more personal. ICollege allows instructors to record voice feedback from within the assignment assessment feature or to add a video file.  When grading written assignments, for example, a short recorded comment accompanied by a rubric can give students personalized comments along with specific feedback on the criteria. One strategy is to give yourself a 1-2 minute recording time-limit and use your comments to target 2-3 areas of strength and 2-3 specific areas to work on. In this way, you can spend less time “grading” and more time engaging your students with actionable feedback.

Focus your Feedback

Make your feedback count! Whether you are using written, audio, or video comments, or even a rubric or automated responses to a wrong answer in a quiz, be sure to give feedback that is focused, actionable, and concise.

• • Focused feedback points directly to a criteria in the assignment or on the rubric and allows the student to clearly understand how your feedback connects to their grade (a very important function of feedback!). For example, rather than commenting on a piece of student writing that “this is well written,” telling the student that “the writing was well-organized with a clear argument and transitions that helped guide the reader” gives a clear indication of why the piece of writing was successful (and this will help solidify that knowledge or skill). In a testing situation, pre-loaded feedback in the iCollege quizzing function which displays in response to an incorrect answer can point the student directly to a category on the rubric.
  • Actionable feedback gives the student directives on what steps to take next. Is there a chance to revise? If so, point the student towards the main issues that need addressing.  Did the student misunderstand a main idea or fail to master a particular skill? Then direct the student towards what specifically went wrong and give actions to correct the mistakes or find relevant resources. Some instructors like to frame this as “This Time” & “Next Time” feedback; how can the student take your feedback and improve next time?
  • Concise feedback means that if you are giving focused and actionable feedback, you can limit how much you give. This is where giving focused feedback aligns with timely feedback; it is often faster to give clear, actionable feedback (no more than 3-5 issues to work on) than to give long, detailed feedback that may not help the student understand what they did well or what they need to improve, and which they probably will be too overwhelmed to read anyway! Combining a rubric with a voice comment, or with 3 “action items” will produce better results and (hopefully) take you less time.

Do you have other tricks up your sleeve for giving timely and effective feedback? If so, please share in the comments!

* Photo by Andrik Langfield on Unsplash

1. Cavanaugh, A. J., & Song, L. (2014). Audio feedback versus written feedback: Instructors’ and students’ perspectives. Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, 10:1, 122.

2. Voelkel, Susanne & Luciane V. Mello (2014). Audio Feedback – Better Feedback?, Bioscience Education, 22:1, 16-30, DOI: 10.11120/beej.2014.00022