Tag Archives: feedback

Structure, Flexibility, and Feedback as an Equity Strategy

Posted on by | Leave a reply

The idea of creating equitable learning environments is at the core of inclusive practices. Many educators argue that equitable learning environments are essential for student success, but what does this mean in practice? Inclusive practices build upon the premise that design and teaching should adapt to support students’ unique needs, fostering student agency. Student-centered approaches prioritize equity over equality. It’s crucial to understand that equity, which tailors resources and opportunities to individual needs, fundamentally differs from equality, which assumes that students should receive the same treatment and that this treatment is thus fair for all.

Equity refers to the “removal of systemic barriers and biases (e.g., policies, processes, outcomes), enabling all individuals to have equal opportunity to access and benefit from resources and opportunities.” (University of Waterloo, n.d.). Equity in online learning means removing barriers to participation. This is especially true for underrepresented groups, first-generation students, and those with different learning styles. Barriers include accessing materials, completing assignments, and interacting with peers and instructors. Applying an equity lens to online and hybrid design and facilitation involves many factors. Among these, structure, flexibility, and feedback are particularly critical. In this post, we will explore these elements from the perspective of the course as a whole. This will set the stage for a deeper examination of these same elements at the assessment level in my next blog post. Stay tuned!

Structure

Instructors often express concerns that students are not fully engaging with the learning materials, such as readings, lectures, videos, or interactives. Additionally, their concerns extend to students superficially responding to discussions or completing assignments without demonstrating critical thinking or analysis of key concepts. In some cases, superficial engagement can undermine the depth of learning and overall course effectiveness. If we think of a course as an ecological system, where all the elements are interconnected and even co-dependent, having a clear and robust structure is crucial. A well-structured course can better prepare and encourage students “both to distribute their studying throughout the term and to spend more time on behaviors related to graded assignments.” (Eddy & Hogan, 2014). So, what does structure entail in an online environment? The following are a few ideas and reflection questions on how an online course can be intentionally designed to build or solidify structure and support a more equitable learning environment:

  • Provide short descriptions for each learning material and their value in the learning process. What do students gain from reading or watching the required material for the remaining activities? 
  • Include a purpose statement in each assignment and how it contributes to learning and achieving outcomes. How are the assessments connected to the overall goal of the course? 
  • Design assessments that promote active learning, higher-order thinking, and student agency. How are students involved in the learning process? How do students apply concepts? Do assessments reflect meaningful personal experiences?   
  • Make the module content, format, and requirements consistent. How are students expected to participate in discussions? Are there activities that can benefit students from peer learning and interaction? For example, create spaces for students to collaborate and support each other beyond the traditional discussion boards.
  • Build in multimodalities for content and assessments. What are the skills that are being asked in the assignment (e.g., emphasize writing or deepening concept understanding)? Are there other ways in which students can demonstrate their learning?  For example, rather than a written paper, consider allowing students to submit an audio recording, a multimedia presentation, a collage, etc.
  • Provide a clear course schedule with regular milestones and check-in points to support learning. For instance, incorporate scaffolding into course activities and assessments with low-stakes and formative assessments.

Flexibility

While a clear and robust course structure is essential for guiding students through the learning process, it’s equally important to recognize the role flexibility plays in supporting diverse learners. Flexibility does not mean a lack of academic integrity or rigor. Flexibility can mean many things for many people therefore, it is important to clarify its intention, meaning, and place in the course. The most common use of flexibility in the online classroom is for extensions on assignments, which can help reduce instructor bias and increase student engagement and agency (Ruesch & Sarvary, 2023). How else can flexibility be incorporated into an online course? Following, there are a few ideas and questions to guide the decision about flexibility:

  • Consider updating late submission policies. Ensure that students know what to expect if unforeseen circumstances prevent them from submitting assignments by the due date. Be cognizant that life happens to everyone, and we need to offer kindness and empathy to students. How can an “automatic” late assignment policy work within the nature and scope of the course?
  • In selecting materials, identify multiple formats students can use to gain knowledge. Are there media-based materials that provide the textbook content in an alternative way (e.g., audiobook, ebook)?
  • Design assignments that include choice for students to select the format or topic of their preference. Do assignments need to all be written? Where can students choose their own topic for a project?

Feedback

While structure and flexibility are essential components of an inclusive learning environment, they alone are insufficient. Research suggests that instructor presence is fundamental to developing a sense of belonging and connection in the online environment. In addition, instructor feedback is as critical as presence to promote learning. Instructor feedback can help students identify the areas to improve. It can also help instructors identify additional resources to support students. Providing students feedback is mutually beneficial. Students receive actionable feedback on their progress and instructors learn what works in the course and what to improve. Let’s explore some ideas for feedback as a framework to build a connection with students:

  • Create feedback guidelines that communicate to students what to expect from you and when. When will assignments be graded and grades reported? How soon will you respond to email questions?
  • Consider offering feedback in multiple formats, such as audio or video in addition to text. Reflect on which activities might benefit from the added context and personal connection audio/video feedback would provide?
  • Prepare rubrics or grading guidelines that clearly indicate to students how the assignments will be graded. Ensure the rubrics are connected to the purpose and expectations of the assignments.
  • Give students actionable feedback that shows students their learning progress and guides them on how to improve.
  • Design the course modules to include feedback and revision steps. This approach will help students see how all course components are connected and contribute to meeting the course outcomes.
  • Include peer feedback (peer review) that 1) gives students guidance on how to conduct a peer review, and 2) enhances their critical thinking and perspectives by reading peers’ work.

Educators can move away from a one-size-fits-all approach by intentionally combining structure, flexibility, and feedback. This creates an environment that addresses the diverse and unique needs of all students and ensures every student has an equal opportunity to succeed, regardless of where they start.

References

  • Eddy, S. L., & Hogan, K. A. (2014). Getting under the hood: how and for whom does increasing course structure work?. CBE life sciences education, 13(3), 453–468. https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.14-03-0050
  • Ruesch, J. M., & Sarvary, M. A. (2024, March). Structure and flexibility: systemic and explicit assignment extensions foster an inclusive learning environment. In Frontiers in Education (Vol. 9, p. 1324506). Frontiers Media SA.
  • University of Waterloo (n.d.). Humanizing Virtual Learning. https://ecampusontario.pressbooks.pub/humanizinglearningonline/


Reducing ‘Distancing’ in Distance Learning: Insights from Student Feedback in Online Education

Posted on by | Leave a reply

In the ever-evolving landscape of higher education, online, distance learning has emerged as a dynamic and accessible platform for students worldwide. However, with this shift to asynchronous online classrooms we must prioritize inclusivity and engagement in our educational strategies. Recognizing this need, Ecampus embarked on a journey to understand inclusive course design and teaching practices through the eyes of the learners.

Survey Summary 

In 2021, Ecampus implemented an Inclusive Excellence Strategic Plan. One goal of this plan focused on enhancing inclusive teaching and learning in online courses. As part of this initiative, a pilot study was conducted during the academic year 2022-2023, to develop a mechanism for students to provide feedback on their learning experiences. The study employed a series of weekly surveys, designed to elicit responses regarding moments of engagement and distancing within online courses.

Administered across five Ecampus courses, the pilot study garnered responses from 163 enrolled students. The findings provide invaluable insights into the nuances of online learning design and offer actionable recommendations for educators seeking to cultivate inclusive excellence in their own asynchronous, online classrooms. The questions were as follows:

  1. At what moment (point) in class this week were you most engaged as a learner?
  2. At what moment (point) in class this week were you most distanced as a learner?
  3. What else about your experience as a learner this week would you like to share?

These questions were carefully crafted to elicit responses related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). By using the verbs “engaged” and “distanced,” students were prompted to reflect on moments of connection and disconnection within their learning environments. The open-ended nature of the questions allowed students to provide contextual feedback, offering valuable insights beyond the scope of predefined categories.

The results of the survey provide a multifaceted understanding of students’ experiences in online courses. Across all five courses, certain patterns emerged regarding elements that students found most engaging and most distancing. These insights served as a springboard for the development of actionable recommendations aimed at enhancing course design and fostering inclusive learning environments.

Alignment

One crucial area highlighted by the survey results was the importance of alignment. Students noticed when their courses had assessments that were aligned with course content, and they noticed when this alignment was missing. Ensuring that learning objectives are represented in instructional materials, practice activities, assessments, and evaluation criteria is key. For more on this, please see “Alignment” by Karen Watté from 2017.

Learning Materials

Another prominent theme in the survey responses was the overwhelming nature of long, uncurated lists of readings and learning materials, which tended to alienate learners. To address this, providing a reading guide or highlighting key points can alleviate feelings of overwhelm. Optimizing content presentation and learning activities emerged as a key factor in promoting engagement and inclusivity. 

Incorporating interactive elements such as knowledge checks and practice activities within or between short lectures keeps students actively engaged and reinforces learning objectives. By utilizing multiple modes of content delivery–videos, lectures, and readings–educators can cater to diverse learning styles and preferences. Providing study guides is also noted as an effective strategy for enhancing comprehension and engagement with learning materials. 

Community & Connection

Supporting student-to-student interaction is pivotal in fostering a sense of community and participation (Akyol & Garrison, 2008). Many learners noted that they enjoyed engaging in small group discussions, in fact 50% of students in one course noted that the week 1 introductory discussion was the point they felt most engaged. Additionally, students across the courses were excited to view and respond to the creative work of their peers. Community-building course elements like these foster a sense of community and collaboration within the virtual classroom. 

While some students had mixed feelings about peer review activities–voicing concerns about feeling unqualified to judge their peer’s work–distinct guidelines and rubrics can empower learners to develop critical thinking, increase ownership, and enhance their communication skills. Thus, thoughtfully crafted peer review processes can also help to enhance the educational experience.

Authentic Activities

Incorporating authentic or experiential learning activities was also highlighted in student responses as a means of connecting course content to real-world scenarios. By integrating professional case studies, practical exercises, real-world applications, and reflective activities, educators can deepen students’ understanding of course material. Survey respondents noted again, and again how they felt engaged when coursework was relevant and applicable outside the classroom. This type of authentic work in courses can also increase learner motivation. (Gulikers, Bastiaens, & Kirschner, 2004)

Timely Feedback & RSI

By offering timely feedback on student work, online educators demonstrate their active presence and assist students in understanding the critical aspects of assessments, ultimately enhancing their chances of success. One student is quoted as saying,

“I really appreciate the involvement of the instructor. In the past I’ve had Ecampus classes where the teacher was doing the bare minimum and didn’t grade things until the last minute so I wasn’t even sure how I was doing in the class until it was almost over. I appreciate the speed at which things have been graded and the feedback I’ve already received. I appreciate the care put into announcements too!”

Timely feedback and time-bound announcements are also notable ways to showcase Regular and Substantive Interaction (RSI). Please also see “Regular & Substantive Interaction in Your Online Course” by Christine Scott.

Scaffolding

Another noteworthy recommendation from the survey findings was the importance of providing scaffolding and support throughout the course. Respondents expressed appreciation for feedback from peers and instructors to improve their writing. One student noted, “When I used my peer review feedback to improve my draft.” Offering additional resources and tutorials for unfamiliar or complex concepts ensures that all students have the support they need to succeed.Moreover, breaking down larger, high-stakes assignments into smaller, manageable tasks, can reduce feelings of overwhelm, provide a sense of accomplishment, increase early feedback and promote overall success. 

Autonomy

Furthermore, offering choice and flexibility in assignments and assessments empowers students to take ownership of their learning journey. Whether it’s offering choice in topics, deliverable types, or exercise formats, providing students with agency fosters a sense of autonomy and engagement. One respondent noted, “I think choosing a project topic was the most engaging part of this week, because allowing students to research things that they are interested [in,] within some constraints is a good way to get them engaged and interested in the topics.” 

Note on Survey Administration

One final take away from the study underscores the importance of thoughtful survey administration. While weekly surveys offer robust results, participating faculty indicated that surveying students every week was too frequent.   Instead, it’s recommended to conduct surveys between one to three times throughout the course, striking a balance between gathering insights and respecting students’ time. Additionally, transparent communication about the purpose and use of student feedback is essential for fostering trust and eliciting honest responses. Students should understand that their feedback is valued and how it will be utilized to improve their learning experience in both the current term and future iterations of the course.

Conclusion

Engagement and inclusion in online education is multifaceted and ongoing. By listening to student feedback, implementing actionable recommendations, and fostering a culture of continuous improvement, educators can create transformative learning experiences that empower students to thrive in the digital age. Together, let us embark on this journey towards inclusive excellence, ensuring that every learner has the opportunity to succeed while feeling valued, supported, and empowered to reach their full potential.

References

Akyol, Z., & Garrison, D. R. (2008). The development of a community of inquiry over time in an online course: Understanding the progression and integration of social, cognitive and teaching presence. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 12(3-4), 3-22. 10.24059/olj.v12i3.72 

Gulikers, J.T.M., Bastiaens, T.J. & Kirschner, P.A. (2004). A five-dimensional framework for authentic assessment. ETR&D 52, 67–86. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02504676 

Scott, C. (2022, November 7). Regular & Substantive Interaction in Your Online Course. Ecampus Course Development & Training Blog.https://blogs.oregonstate.edu/inspire/2022/11/07/regular-substantive-interaction-in-your-online-course/ 

Watté, K. (2017, January 27). Alignment. Ecampus Course Development & Training Blog.   https://blogs.oregonstate.edu/inspire/2017/01/27/alignment/  


Improving Student Engagement and Connection in Online Learning through Proactive Support

Posted on by | Leave a reply

This blog post is an Instructor Spotlight authored by Xiaohui Chang. Xiaohui is an Associate Professor of Business Analytics in the College of Business.

Introduction

Teaching an online course can feel like a solitary experience, and it can be isolating for students as well. Don’t we all wish we could get to know our students better? In this post, I’ll share some of my teaching practices that help me connect, support, and engage our online students. 

First, a little background about my teaching, especially online teaching. I have been heavily involved in undergraduate and graduate teaching since 2014 and have taught more than 2000 students (2047 to be exact) under a variety of teaching modalities including traditional face-to-face classes, online courses with Ecampus, synchronous class sessions due to COVID-19. The courses I teach are mostly quantitative, including business statistics and business analytics. Since my first online class in Summer 2017, I have delivered 8 online classes with 347 students in total. Besides my extensive online teaching experience, I have attended many workshops to improve my skills, had numerous productive conversations with colleagues and Ecampus instructional designers, and acquired knowledge in theory and practice from books and websites. Most importantly in the past several years after developing the tricks and practices described below, I have put them to the test in my online classes.

Most of my practices revolve around one key idea: provide proactive support to students, which is also advocated by Ecampus in their Online Teaching Principles. The two principles that touch on this type of proactive support are (1) Reach out and (2) Refer and Cultivate Inclusion.

What does this look like in action? In this post, I will share some examples of how I apply these principles to demonstrate care, connect with students, and proactively support those that may be struggling. My hope is that other instructors will find methods that resonate and work for your students as well. 

Employ Empathy Statements in Email and Other Communications

Empathetic emails and other communications are essential in establishing supportive interactions with students but they don’t get the amount of attention and effort that they truly deserve. First of all, emails are undoubtedly the most popular tool used by students to connect with faculty. On a 5-point Likert-type (1=never, 2=sometimes, 3=about half the time, 4=most of the time, 5=always), emails are rated 3.53 which is the highest among all tools used. Online instructors spend hours responding to student emails every day. I receive an email like the following anywhere between once a week to a few times each week.

“I am sorry for reaching you so late … I just realized this issue now with all of my classes. I might have been distracted by … at the moment, causing me to lose certain grades, but I am trying to be more attentive moving forward … Is there any way I could still get points for my missing assignments? Thank you for your understanding, and I’m sorry again for the trouble.”

Quote from student email

In face-to-face interactions, I try to be straightforward. My natural response to an email like this would simply be a description of the student’s missed assignments and a discussion of the late penalty policy in this course. After drafting a response email, I try to pause for a while, re-read the student’s email, and try to put myself in their shoes. 

After teaching at OSU for a few years, I noticed that many of our students are shouldering multiple roles and responsibilities while attending school full time. According to the 2020 OSU survey collected from a total of 1,190 students, close to 47% of the students are working full time, 20% are working part-time, and 29% are caregivers to a child or a family member. A few of my students have been serving in Afghanistan while taking my online classes. Students’ commitments outside of class increased even more during this unprecedented COVID era. I doubt I would do a better job than my students who are wearing multiple hats in staying focused in all of these courses and keeping track of tens of due dates every week. I strongly believe that getting into an empathetic mindset not only helps me relate to them, listen to their stories, and feel their frustration, but also makes students feel that they are not just another number. In my final response to the aforementioned email, I start my reply with a paragraph like the following and discuss the missed assignments and late penalties in the second paragraph.

“Sorry to hear that you’ve been distracted by …. I understand that it can get quite difficult to stay on top of everything at the moment. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to me or the Ecampus academic and student support services if we can be of any help to you. We are here to support all of our students to succeed.”

Instructor email response

This additional paragraph takes very little time to write but carries a long way to foster a supportive online learning environment. Some of my students shared this feedback in my teaching evaluations.

“For someone that is off-campus, this was a great feeling that I wasn’t just another student, I almost felt as if I was her only student, that’s what that little note meant.”

Quote from student evaluation

I highly recommend all online instructors to consider using empathy statements in their emails and other communications with their students. They mean more to your students than you believe. You can find more information about empathy in online instruction via Michelle Pacansky-Brock’s Humanizing Infographic and in the Humanizing Online Learning blog post by Tianhong Shi.

Restructure Office Hours – “Ask Me Anything Hours”

Research studies have shown that high-quality student-faculty interactions are linked with many benefits ranging from academic success to student retention (Kuh et al. 2010, Tinto 1997).

For online classes, besides email messages, virtual office hours are another useful way to engage student and faculty interactions. Nevertheless, in the 2020 OSU Survey, when asked which tools they use to communicate with faculty, the average score for emails was 3.53, compared to a mere 1.59 for virtual office hours. Smith et al. (2017) recommends that faculty and higher education institutions “make it explicit what students might get out of office hours”, “create nurturing classroom environments by promoting friendly and dedicate attitudes toward teaching among faculty,” and “openly and proactively promote office hours.” Because many online students are not aware of the purpose of office hours, following the suggestions from my colleague, Dr. Jason Stornelli, I have renamed all my office hours to “Ask Me Anything Hours” to make the sessions informative and inviting. I have also tried to proactively promote these sessions through Canvas announcements, groups emails, and one-on-one emails. The student attendance rate has gone up since then. This further cultivates a supportive and welcoming environment for the students, inciting responses such as the following:

I never got to take advantage of the office hours, but I’ve never had an online instructor who encouraged visiting them so much, which felt very inviting. I always felt like I had a voice and was cared about.

Quote from student evaluation

Provide Constructive and Personal Feedback for Students to Reflect and Improve Upon

Many of my students also appreciate the personal feedback they received after the exams and some important assignments. Modern technologies including grading rubric and speed graders in Canvas have expedited grading significantly, but may limit the personal and constructive feedback from the instructors. For online classes, personal feedback is particularly important because it provides learners with valuable feedback in which to inform, reflect, and adjust their learning. In my classes, I first organize all exam questions according to their modules. After students complete the exam, I go through every student’s exam and identify their individual points of weakness, i.e., the modules and the types of questions that they would need to improve upon. I also offer an extra credit assignment for students to make up some lost points from the exams; this will not change students’ grades substantially but offers an opportunity and an incentive for students to practice and learn from their mistakes.

I have never had a teacher email me personal feedback about one of my midterms. I went over the modules you said I should work on, and it really helped me on the final. The extra practice problems were very useful in not only raising my grades but also grasping the subject better.

Quote from student evaluation

Periodically Check in with Students Who Are Behind

Checking in with students who may be struggling in the class throughout the term plays a critical role in supporting our students. This has been made easier than ever by Canvas LMS. Under the Canvas gradebook, for each assignment, we can email those students who failed to submit an assignment or scored less than a specific score. For online classes with many assignments due every week, it becomes challenging to keep track of all the due dates even with the assistance of automatic to-do reminders from Canvas. In my emails, I also encourage students who are falling behind to seek assistance either from me, our Teaching Assistant, a private tutor, or TutorMe, which is an online tutoring platform for currently enrolled OSU Ecampus students, and connects them with live tutors in under 30 seconds and 24/7. Sometimes students are not aware or just forget about the many assistance and resources offered in this class. 

Online students often feel invisible and insignificant. They need to be seen and valued by instructors. Many of the practices outlined above can be easily done and are essential in fostering a supportive learning culture and ensuring the success of students. I hope you try out some of these practices in your online classes and find at least one of them helpful for you and your students.

Infographic created by Brittni Racek via Venngage

Feel free to contact me at Xiaohui.Chang@oregonstate.edu as I am always eager to hear your feedback and suggestions. Let us connect with and support each other in this online teaching journey as much as we do with our students.

Sources

Learning from Games: Failure Edition

Posted on by | Leave a reply

Photo by Sarah Kilian on Unsplash.

This is the paradox of failure in games. It can be stated like this:

  1. We generally avoid failure.
  2. We experience failure when playing games.
  3. We seek out games, although we will experience something that we normally avoid. (Juul, p. 2)

As a continuation from my last blog post considering grades and Self-Determination Theory, I wanted to take a brief side-quest into considering what it means to experience failure. Jesper Juul’s The Art of Failure: An Essay on the Pain of Playing Video Games will provide the main outline and material for this post, while I add what lessons we might learn about feedback and course design in online settings.

Dealing with Failure

Juul outlines how games communicate through feedback using the theory of Learned Helplessness. Specifically, he focuses on Weiner’s attribution theory, which has three dimensions:

  1. Internal vs. External Failure
    1. Internal: The failure is the fault of the player. “I don’t have the skills to defeat this enemy right now.”
    2. External: The failure is the fault of the game. “The camera moved in a way that I couldn’t see or control and resulted in a game over.”
  2. Stable vs. Unstable Failure
    1. Stable: The failure will be consistent. No recognition of experience gained or improvement. “No matter what I do, I can’t get past this challenge.”
    2. Unstable: The failure is temporary. There is a possibility for future success. “I can improve and try again.”
  3. Global vs. Specific Failure
    1. Global: There is a general inability preventing success. “I am not good at playing video games.”
    2. Specific: Poor performance does not reflect on our general abilities or intelligence. “I’m not good at flight simulators, but that doesn’t mean I’m bad at all video games.”

In general, a combination of Internal+Stable+Global failure feedback would contribute most strongly toward a player adopting a learned helplessness mindset. There is a potential parallel here with course design: when a student does not do well on an assessment, what kind of feedback are they receiving? In particular, are they receiving signals that there is no opportunity for improvement (stable failure) and that it shows a general inability at the given task (global failure)? Designing assessments so that setbacks are unstable (offer multiple attempts and a way for students to observe their own improvement over time) and communicating specific skills to improve (make sure feedback pinpoints how a student could improve) would help students bounce back from a “game over” scenario. But what about internal vs. external failure? For Juul, “this marks another return of the paradox of failure: it is only through feeling responsible for failure (which we dislike) that we can feel responsible for escaping failure (which we like)” (p. 54). This importance of internal failure aligns with what we know about metacognition (Berthoff, “Dialectical notebooks and the audit of meaning”) and the numerous benefits of reflection in learning.

Succeeding from Failure

Now that we have an idea on how we deal with failure, let’s consider how we can turn that failure into success! “Games then promise players the possibility of success through three different kinds of fairness or three different paths: skill, chance, and labor” (Juul, p. 74):

  1. Skill: Learning through failure, emphasis on improvement with each attempt. (This is also very motivating by being competence-supportive!)
  2. Chance: We try again to see if we get lucky.
  3. Labor: Incremental progress on small tasks accumulates more abilities and items that persist through time and multiple play sessions. Emphasis here is on incremental growth over time through repetition. (Animal Crossing is a great example.) (This path is also supported by Dweck’s growth mindset.)

Many games reward players for all three of these paths to success. In an online course, allowing flexibility in assignment strategies can help students explore different routes to success. For example, a final project could allow for numerous format types, like a paper, podcast, video tutorial, interactive poster, etc. that students choose strategically based on their own skills and interests. Recognizing improvement will help students with their skills and helping students establish a routine of smaller, simpler tasks that build over an entire course can help them succeed through labor. Chance is an interesting thing to think about in terms of courses, but I like to think of this as it relates to content. Maybe a student “gets lucky” by having a discussion topic align with their final project topic, for example. For the student in that example, that discussion would come easier to them by chance. Diversifying content and assignment types can help different individuals and groups of students feel like they have “lucky” moments in a course.

Reflecting on Failure

Finally, how do games give us the opportunity to reflect on our successes and failures during gameplay? Juul outlines three types of goals that “make failure personal in a different way and integrates a game into our life in its own way” (pp. 86–87):

  1. Completable Goal: Often the result of a linear path and has a definite end.
    1. These can be game- or player-created. (i.e., Game-Driven: Defeat the ghost haunting the castle. Player-Driven: I want to defeat the ghost without using magic.)
  2. Transient Goal: Specific, one-time game sessions with no defined end, but played in rounds. (e.g., winning or losing a single round of Mario Kart.)
  3. Improvement Goal: Completing a personal best score, where a new high score sets a new goal.

For Juul, each of these goal-types have different “existential implications: while working toward a completable goal, we are permanently inscribed with a deficiency, and reaching the goal removes that deficiency, perhaps also removing the desire to play again. On the other hand, we can never make up for failure against a transient goal (since a lost match will always be lost), whereas an improvement goal is a continued process of personal progress” (pp. 86–87). When thinking about your courses, what kinds of goals do you design for? Many courses have single-attempt assignments (transient goal), but what if those were designed to be improvement goals, where students worked toward improving on their previous work in a more iterative way that replaced old scores with new and improved scores (improvement goal)? Are there opportunities for students to create their own challenging completable goals?

I hope this post shines a light on some different ways of thinking about assessment design, feedback types, and making opportunities for students to “fail safely” based on how these designs are achieved in gaming. To sum everything up, “skill, labor, and chance make us feel deficient in different ways when we fail. Transient, improvement, and completable goals distribute our flaws, our failures, and successes in different ways across our lifetimes” (Juul, p. 90).

Adding a New Feedback Loop to Your Online Courses

Posted on by | Leave a reply
Canvas Survey with Mud Card Questions

New online instructors often express concern about the loss of immediate student feedback they get by teaching in person. These educators count on in-class interaction to help shape their lesson plans in real-time. Student questions, lack of interaction, or even blank looks, help them understand what concepts are difficult for their learners. Others just feel more comfortable with the two-way nature of in-classroom communication.

But teaching in an online environment doesn’t have to be mutually exclusive from gauging student interest and comprehension.

Mud Cards

child in mud puddle in rain boots

I was first introduced to the concept of “Mud Cards” or “Muddiest Points” through an open course MIT offered in Active Learning in College-Level Science and Engineering Courses. The instructor described handing out index cards to each student at the end of class asking students to write down an answer to one or more of a few prompts (MIT OpenCourseWare, 2015).

In an online course, this could easily take the form of a weekly survey that looked something like this:

  • What concept from this week did you find confusing?
  • Is there anything you found particularly compelling?
  • What would you like to know more about?

Potential Benefits

The answers received have multiple potential benefits. First of all, instructors will get to look for trends in a particular class.

  • Are learners missing something central to a course learning outcome?
  • Is there a concept they need additional resources to master prior to an upcoming exam?
  • What excites them the most?

Getting this information weekly can provide information that is normally gathered during in-class interactions. It may even be more informative, as participation is likely to be higher (or can be incentivized through participation points). This feedback can be used to add content, perhaps through an announcement at the beginning of the next unit, addressing any common problems students reported. It can also help improve the content or activities for the next iteration of the online course.

The second benefit of an activity like this one is that it is an easy way to introduce active learning to your online course. Active learning, with origins in Constructivism, includes the idea that students build knowledge through “doing things and thinking about what they are doing.”

Rather than passively watching narrated slide-based lectures or videos, or completing assigned readings, they are asked to think about what is being taught to them. Each student, by reflecting on questions like the examples above, takes some responsibility for their own mastery of the content.

3-2-1 (a similar tool)

I recently attended the keynote at the Oregon state Ecampus Virtual Faculty Forum by Tracey Tokuhama-Espinosa (Tokuhama-Espinosa, 2020). At the beginning of her presentation, she told all of us we were going to be asked to email her our “3-2-1.” A 3-2-1, she defined as:

  • Three things that are new to me
  • Two things so interesting I will continue to research or share with someone else
  • One thing I will change about my practices based on the information shared today

Even though I was very familiar with the underlying pedagogical practice she was leveraging, I paid significantly more attention than I would have otherwise to an online presentation. I wanted to come up with something helpful to say. To be honest, suffering from COVID related ZOOM fatigue, it also made sense to ensure the hour of my time resulted in something actionable.

A Word of Caution

The use of a tool like the Mud Cards or 3-2-1 will be successful only if used consistently and students see the results of their efforts. If not introduced early and repeated regularly, students won’t develop the habit of consuming content through the lens of reflecting on their own learning. Similarly, students who never see a response to their input, through a summary or additional explanations, will get the message that their feedback is not important and lose the incentive to continue to provide it.

Conclusion

Introducing a reflection activity like those suggested is a simple, quick way to incorporate active learning into a course while simultaneously filling a void instructors sometimes miss through being able to ask questions of their students in a classroom.

Canvas allows for building anonymous graded or ungraded surveys in which a weekly activity like this would be easy to link to in a list of tasks for a unit of study. It is a low development effort on the part of the instructor, and participation from students shouldn’t take more than 5 minutes.

I will link below to some of the resources mentioned that discuss the use and benefits of Mud Cards and active learning in instruction. If you try it out in an online course, I would love to hear how it works for you.

Resources

Rainboots photo by Daiga Ellaby on Unsplash

Facilitating Active Learning with Zoom

Posted on by | Leave a reply

Facilitating Active Learning with Zoom

connected learners image
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

By Christine Scott, Instructional Design Specialist, Oregon State University Ecampus

So you managed to get your face-to-face courses up and running remotely in the midst of a global pandemic. You’ve secured your Zoom sessions to avoid unwanted disruptions, your students are in their virtual seats, and you’ve successfully delivered a few lectures. So what’s next?

Now that you have students’ attention, you may find that you’re ready to focus on transforming your synchronous session into a space for active learning to take place. It’s no secret that students learn better when they are actively engaged in the learning process. The question is how that translates to a remote Zoom session. Is it even possible to recreate the dynamic learning environment of your face-to-face class? 

To answer that question, we can look to best practices in online pedagogy. We know that students in online environments experience better outcomes and higher satisfaction when there are opportunities for active learning and engagement with the instructor, the course content, and each other. Fortunately, Zoom has several tools we can leverage to incorporate learner engagement in the remote setting.

Creating Opportunities for Active Learning

To set the stage for active learning, consider breaking your content delivery into shorter chunks, punctuated by periods of activity. Ask students to do something meaningful to help them engage with the content. This approach not only supports learning, but it also encourages accountability. If students understand they will be called upon to complete a task, they are more likely to be motivated to engage with the lecture.

During your synchronous session, you might ask students to: 

  • Respond to a question
  • Take notes to share
  • Create a list of examples or discussion questions to share afterward on the Canvas discussion board
  • Prepare a reflection to submit after the fact
  • Solve a problem

Breakout Rooms in Zoom

Breakout rooms are easy to set up and operate in Zoom. These small group spaces are useful as a means of incorporating peer-to-peer interaction and feedback into your remote course. They can also promote inclusion by providing an opportunity for low-stakes participation for learners who may be reluctant to chime in during large group sessions. Finally, breakout session activities can serve as a tool for formative assessment as the activities students complete can help instructors gauge achievement of the learning outcomes. 

Creating Breakout Room Tasks

Breakout room tasks can be carried out on-the-fly in the synchronous session, or they can form part of a more complex assignment. You might provide a prompt, file, or a link as a springboard for spontaneous discussion in small groups. Alternatively, you might flip your remote classroom by providing students with a pre-activity to complete before the live session. For further engagement, you might have students build on what they produce in their breakout rooms through an asynchronous submission in Canvas. 

When creating breakout room tasks: 

  • Set clear expectations. Any explanation of expectations should include a clear relationship to learning outcomes. Provide a code of conduct for interaction, performance expectations related to the task, etc.
  • Prepare instructions in advance. Provide students with a clear task and deliverable. Include any resources needed to complete the task. Outline the deliverable or provide a model so that students understand what is expected upon reconvening with the whole class. 
  • Guide students in how to self-organize. Assign roles or ask students to assign them (host facilitator, notetaker, timekeeper, and speaker who reports back to the class). 
  • Provide technical support. A tip sheet for the technology can be helpful in case they get stuck, for example. 
  • Monitor. Circulate as you would in your face-to-face class by joining breakout rooms to check in. 
  • Report back. Ask students to present a summary slide (groups might contribute a slide to a class google presentation), share group’s response, etc. Follow up with whole-group sharing in some form. 

Sample Breakout Room Activity Types

  • Small group discussion
  • Think – Pair – Share
  • Group project
  • Data analysis/text analysis
  • Debate preparation
  • Simulation practice – mock interview
  • Peer feedback
  • Jigsaw activity

Polling 

Another option for interactivity during lectures is the Zoom poll. Polls are easy to launch and are a handy tool for icebreakers at the beginning of sessions, to check for understanding, or to allow students to have input on lecture content. They can be created as anonymous surveys or as simple question responses. 

Fig. 1 This example demonstrates how polling could be used to pose a question and elicit an anonymous response from participants.

Non-verbal Feedback in Zoom 

Sample of Nonverbal feedback icons from Zoom
Nonverbal Feedback options in Zoom

If you miss the non-verbal feedback of a live audience in a face-to-face setting, you might consider encouraging students to use Zoom’s non-verbal feedback options available in the chat window. This tool allows students to input quick yes/no responses to questions, ask for the speaker to speed up or slow down, indicate that they need a break, and more. 

Sample of a music activity
Fig 2. Consider how the simplicity of non-verbal feedback indicators might be useful in a cognitive psychology course for student feedback while listening to audio clips. Students could be asked to use the thumbs up when they can name the familiar melody mixed with interfering tones, for example.

 

Facilitating Lab Experiences Remotely

Live lab activities provide another opportunity for interactive experiences in Zoom. The following examples of lab tasks that implement active learning principles are taken from existing online courses through Oregon State University Ecampus. Consider how similar field and lab experiences could be used to engage learners in your remote courses. 

Sample Experiences

image from science course

Science Education

In this example from a phenology course, students observe and record specific elements in a local natural area over the course of the term. After watching an instructor-led demonstration, learners record key elements based on Nature’s Notebook. They then share their data, photos, and drawings with the class to create a collective body of observations. Students then contribute their observations to a national phenology network. 

Public Health

pedometer walker
Image source: pixfuel.com, cc

Learners in this course collect and analyze authentic data through a public health topic: the human-built environment. Students wear a pedometer to track how many steps they take over a 48-hour period. They ask other members of their family or community to track the same information. Students gather, analyze, and compare their data to identify potential strategies their community could implement to improve its built environment to promote active transportation by walking, biking, or other means.

Tips for setting up remote lab demonstrations or tasks: 

  • Consider common household items to recreate a lab experience
  • Add or find components online
  • Use online videos or DIY recordings of a demonstration
  • Present simulations and provide an analysis or breakdown of what is happening
  • Connect students to virtual labs or simulations
  • Provide instructions and expected outcomes
  • Demonstrate or show the process for collecting data
  • Provide raw data for students to analyze
  • Offline – engage students with assignments or discussions related to the remote lab experience

Whether you opt to use breakout rooms to facilitate collaborative tasks, quick polls to gather student input on lecture content, or non-verbal feedback options to take the pulse of your audience, the features of Zoom offer a means of interaction that can help you to bring students to the center of your remote teaching sessions. 

Adapted from slide presentation by Cyndie McCarley, Assistant Director of Instructional Design, Oregon State University Ecampus

Self-Determination Theory and Online Education: Thinking About Grades

Posted on by | Leave a reply

red lightbulb

Photo by Terry Vlisidis on Unsplash

Last Time on SDT & Online Education…

This post is a continuation of my previous blog posts on Self-Determination Theory (SDT) and Online Education and a companion post to Chris Lindberg’s series of posts, Games as a Model for Motivation and Engagement.

In my last post, I posed some difficult questions to consider as you start thinking about how you use grades and motivation in your courses. In case you missed that post, here are the questions—I invite you to spend a few minutes, hours, or days with these questions before moving on with the rest of this blog post:

  • Do you use grades to create external regulation of behavior in your course?
    • Are you grading a behavior or the demonstration of a skill?
  • Do you want to emphasize performance goals or mastery goals?
  • Are there ways to help students identify and integrate the activities and assessments in your course?
  • Do you need to grade this activity/assessment/task?

Why are you grading?

“The troubling truth is that rewards and punishments are not opposites at all; they are two sides of the same coin. And it is a coin that does not buy very much.” (Kohn, 1993, p. 50)

When I first started teaching, I remember asking a colleague if they would review my syllabus draft. They read the attendance policy and asked me something along the lines of, “Why are you grading this? Does it have anything to do with the outcomes of your course?” I probably spewed the usual talking points that students do better in class when they attend, I wanted them to come to class, etc. The reply: “So, do you want to grade learning, or behavior?” That question rocked my world as a young teacher. And made me question everything.

Why do we use grades? Numerous studies have shown that grades and rewards, especially for intrinsically motivating activities such as learning, have detrimental effects. And what do these grades communicate? In terms of SDT, “grading in educational contexts has two functions. One is providing competence-relevant feedback to students, presumably as an aid to enhancing subsequent performance … A second is gatekeeping. Grades can be used to make sure that only students who have mastered material and are thus qualified are eligible for higher training…” (Ryan & Deci, 2017, p. 371). What does an A, B or F communicate to you? For Ryan & Deci, grades by themselves provide little in the way of relevant feedback. (For more on effective feedback, see Wiggins, 2012.)

So can a “grade” be useful? In the context of SDT, there needs to be important information communicated to students about how they’re doing and where they need to spend more attention and effort. In order for this to be autonomy-supportive, it should be informative for the learning process and not judgmental, pressure-inducing, or a social comparison, both in terms of being a reward or a punishment. For example, “Great work. You might consider adding an example in your third paragraph.” is not informative toward the learning process; “You do a great job of defining the problem in your third paragraph, which is an improvement from your first draft. Adding an example would do even more to help your readers relate to this problem.” is an example of feedback that informs a student about where they have come from and where they still need to go.

Performance vs. Mastery

“There do, indeed, seem to be few empirical or theoretical supports for the motivational or competence-building advantages of classical grading schemes. Yet, in most school settings, grades and evaluations are employed as if they were the key to motivation, when, in fact, especially for those who need competence supports, they are likely to be undermining influences.” (Ryan & Deci, 2017, p. 371)

Is it possible to see a letter grade of your work in a course outside the context of social comparison? How often is a B simply viewed as “better than average” or “in the top half of the class”? Focusing on performing a certain way relative to others is a performance goal, while focusing on increasing competence or learning is a mastery goal. (For more on this topic, see Elliot, 2005.) Additionally, each category of goal has an approach type (seeking to achieve something) and an avoidance type (seeking to avoid something). Multiple studies have found that the performance-avoidance combination has the most detrimental outcomes for both learning and student well being, and that this combination is adopted most when students have expectations of being graded (Ryan & Deci, 2017, p. 373).

Ungrading

“…the grading system that higher education in the United States has relied on for many decades has serious problems. It does not work in anyone’s interests, and it genuinely hurts those most directly associated with it: the faculty and the students. In fact, the system is broken.” (Nilson, 2015, p. 23)

At this point you might be asking, “what am I supposed to do?” There are numerous tools, resources, alternatives, and considerations when thinking about using or eliminating grades in a course, such as self-assessment, student-created rubrics, or specifications or criterion-based grading. (Several more are listed in the Reference & Resources section below). One option is to eliminate grading all together, which some institutions have done. If you aren’t ready to eliminate all your grades, try focusing on providing students with feedback in an autonomy-supportive way and empowering them to learn the valuable skill of self-assessment. Without rewards and punishments, students will feel a greater sense of competence; self-assessment and valuable and informative feedback will give students a greater sense of autonomy—that they’re in the driver’s seat for their own learning; with an increased focus on communication about learning, students will also gain a greater sense of relatedness.

There is much more to the topic of grading and ungrading than can be covered in a single blog post, so I’d like to invite you to check out the references and resources below, add your comments, suggestions, and experiences in the comments, contact your instructional designer, or keep an eye out for other opportunities to continue the discussion at various upcoming Ecampus events!

References & Resources

Center for Self-Determination Theory (CSDT). (2019).

  • This website is a treasure-trove of resources on SDT and its application in numerous fields, including education.

Elliot, A. J. (2005). A conceptual history of the achievement goal construct. In Elliot, A. J., & Dweck, C. S. (Eds.) Handbook of competence and motivation (52–72). New York: Guilford Press.

Flaherty, C. (2019). When grading less is more. Inside Higher Ed.

Kohn, A. (2018). Rewards are still bad news (25 years later). New York Times.

Kohn, A. (2011). The case against grades. Educational Leadership.

Kohn, A. (1993). Punished by rewards: The trouble with gold stars, incentive plans, A’s, praise, and other bribes. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Nilson, L. (2015). Specifications grading: Restoring rigor, motivating students, and saving faculty time. Serling, VA: Stylus.

Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2017). Self-Determination Theory: Basic psychological needs in motivation, development, and wellness. New York: Guilford Press.

Stommel, J. (2018). How to ungrade.

Wiggins, G. (2012). Seven keys to effective feedback. Educational Leadership 70(1), 10–16.

Academic Honesty in Online Assessment

Posted on by | Leave a reply

I pledge that I have acted honorably in completing this assessment.

There are two sides to the story of security of online assessments. On the one side, cheating does exist in online assessments. Examity’s president Michael London summarized five common ways students cheat on online exams:

  1. The old-school try of notes;
  2. The screenshot;
  3. The water break;
  4. The cover-up; and
  5. The big listen through devices such as Bluetooth headset (London, 2017).

Newton (2015) even reported the disturbing fact that “cheating in online classes is now big business”. On the other side, academic dishonesty is a problem of long history, both on college campuses and in online courses. The rate of students who admit to cheating at least once in their college careers has held steady at somewhere around 75 percent since the first major survey on cheating in higher education in 1963 (Lang, 2013). Around 2000, Many faculty and students believed it was easier to cheat in online classes (Kennedy, 2000), and about a third of academic leaders perceived online outcomes to be inferior to traditional classes (Allen & Seaman, 2011). However, according to Watson and Sottile (2010) and other comparative studies (Pilgrim & Scanlon, 2018), there is no conclusive evidence that online students are more likely to cheat than face-to-face students. “Online learning is, itself, not necessarily a contributing factor to an increase in academic misconduct (Pilgrim & Scanlon, 2018)”.

Since there are so many ways for students to cheat in online assessments, how can we make online assessments more effective in evaluating students’ learning? Online proctoring is a solution that is easy for instructors but adds a burden of cost to students. Common online proctoring service providers include ProctorU, Examity, Proctorio, Honorlock, to name just a few (Bentley, 2017).

Fortunately, there are other ways to assess online learning without overly concerned with academic dishonesty. Vicky Phillips (n.d.) suggested that authentic assessment makes it extremely difficult to fake or copy one’s homework. The University of Maryland University College has consciously moving away from proctored exams and use scenario-based projects as assessments instead (Lieberman, 2018). James Lang (2013) suggested smaller class sizes will allow instructor to have more instructor-to-students interaction one-on-one and limit cheating to the minimum therefore; Pilgrim and Scanlon (2018) suggest changing assessments to reduce the likelihood of cheating (such as demonstrating problem solving in person or via video, using plagiarism detection software programs like TurnItIn, etc.) , promote and establish a culture of academic integrity (such as honor’s code, integrity pledge), and supporting academic integrity through appropriate policies and processes. Kohnheim-Kalkstein (2006) reports that the use of a classroom honor code has been shown to reduce cheating. Kohnheim-Kalkstein, Stellmack, and Shilkey (2008) report that use of classroom honor code improves rapport between faculty and students, and increases feelings of trust and respect among students. Gurung, Wilhelm and Fitz (2012) suggest that an honor pledge should include formal language, state the specific consequences for cheating, and require a signature. For the honor pledge to be most effective, Shu, Mazar, Gino, Ariely, and Bazerman (2012) suggests including the honor pledge on the first page of an online assessment or online assignment, before students take the assessment or work on the assignment.

Rochester Institute of Technology (2014) ’s Teaching Elements: Assessing Online Students offer a variety of ways to assess students, including discussions, low-stake quizzes, writing assignments (such as muddiest point paper), and individual activities (such as staged assignments for students to receive ongoing feedback), and many other activities.

In summary, there are plenty of ways to design effective formative or summative assessments online that encourage academic honesty, if instructors and course designers are willing to spend the time to try out suggested strategies from literature.

References

Bentley, Kevin. (2017). What to consider when selecting an online exam proctoring service. Inside HigherEd. (June 21, 2017). Retrieved from https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/views/2017/06/21/selecting-online-exam-proctoring-service on February 22, 2019.

Gurung, R. A. R., Wilhelm, T. M., & Filz, T. (2012). Optimizing honor codes for online exam administration. Ethics & Behavior, 22, 158–162.

Konheim-Kalkstein, Y. L. (2006). Use of a classroom honor code in higher education. Journal of Credibility Assessment and Witness Psychology, 7, 169–179.

Konheim-Kalkstein,Y. L., Stellmack, M. A., & Shilkey, M. L. (2008). Comparison of honor code and non-honor code classrooms at a non-honor code university. Journal of College & Character, 9, 1–13.

J.M. Lang. (2013). How college classes encourage cheating. Boston Globe. Retrieved from https://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2013/08/03/how-college-classes-encourage-cheating/3Q34x5ysYcplWNA3yO2eLK/story.html on February 21, 2019.

Lieberman, Mark. (2018). Exam proctoring for online students hasn’t yet transformed. Inside Higher Ed (October 10, 2018). Retrieved from https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/article/2018/10/10/online-students-experience-wide-range-proctoring-situations-tech, on February 22, 2019.

Michael London. (2017). 5 Ways to Cheat on Online Exams. Inside Higher Ed (09/20/2017). Retrieved from https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/views/2017/09/20/creative-ways-students-try-cheat-online-exams on February 21, 2019.

Derek Newton. (2015). Cheating in Online Classes is now big business. The Atlantic. Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/11/cheating-through-online-courses/413770/ on February 21, 2019.

Vicky Phillips. (n.d.). Big Fat Online Education Myths – students cheat like weasels in Online Classes. GetEducated. Retrieved from https://www.geteducated.com/elearning-education-blog/big-fat-online-education-myths-students-cheat-like-weasels-in-online-classes/ on February 21, 2019.

Chris Pilgrim and Christopher Scanlon. (2018). Don’t assume online students are more likely to cheat. The evidence is murky. Retrieved from https://phys.org/news/2018-07-dont-assume-online-students-evidence.html on February 21, 2019.

Rochester Institute of Technology. (2014). Teaching Elements: Assessing Online Students. Retrieved from https://www.rit.edu/academicaffairs/tls/sites/rit.edu.academicaffairs.tls/files/docs/TE_Online%20Assessmt.pdf on February 21, 2019.

Shu, L. L., Mazar, N., Gino, F., Ariely, D., & Bazerman, M. H. (2012). Signing at the beginning makes ethics salient and decreases dishonest self-reports in comparison to signing at the end. PNAS, 109, 15197–15200.

George Watson. And James Sottile. (2010). Cheating in digital age: Do students cheat more in online courses? Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration 13(1). Retrieved from https://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/spring131/watson131.html on February 21, 2019

Audio feedback: What does the research say?

Posted on by | Leave a reply

First, let’s start by considering the characteristics of effective feedback in general. What comes to mind?

sound waves

Perhaps you hear in your head (in the authentically authoritative voice of a past professor) the words timely, frequent, regular, balanced, specific. Perhaps you recall the feedback sandwich–corrective feedback sandwiched between positive feedback. Perhaps you consider rubrics or ample formative feedback to be critical components of effective feedback. You wouldn’t be wrong.

As educators, we understand the main characteristics of effective feedback. But despite this fact, students are often disappointed by the feedback they receive and faculty find the feedback process time consuming, often wondering if the time commitment is worth it. As an instructional designer, I hear from faculty who struggle to get students to pay attention to feedback and make appropriate changes based on feedback. I hear from faculty who struggle to find the time to provide quality feedback, especially in large classes. The struggle is real. I know this because I hear about it all the time.

I’m glad I hear about these concerns. I always want faculty to share their thoughts about what’s working and what’s not working in their classes. About a year or two ago, I also started hearing rave reviews from faculty who decided to try audio feedback in their online courses. They loved it and reported that their students loved it. Naturally, I wanted to know if these reports were outliers or if there’s evidence supporting audio feedback as an effective pedagogical practice.

I started by looking for research on how audio feedback influences student performance, but what I found was research on how students and faculty perceive and experience audio feedback.

What I learned was that, overall, students tend to prefer audio feedback. Faculty perceptions, however, are mixed, especially in terms of the potential for audio feedback to save them time.

While the research was limited and the studies often had contradictory results, there was one consistent takeaway from multiple studies: audio feedback supports social presence, student-faculty connections, and engagement.

While research supports the value of social presence online, audio feedback is not always considered for this purpose. Yet, audio feedback is an excellent opportunity to focus on teaching presence by connecting one-to-one with students.

If you haven’t tried audio feedback in your classes, and you want to, here are some tips to get you started:

  1. Use the Canvas audio tool in Speedgrader. See the “add media comment” section of the Canvas guide to leaving feedback comments. Since this tool is integrated with Canvas, you won’t have to worry about upload and download times for you or your students.
  2. Start slow. You don’t have to jump into the deep end and provide audio comments on all of your students’ assignments. Choose one or two to get started.
  3. Ask your students what they think. Any time you try something new, it’s a good idea to hear from your students. Creating a short survey in your course to solicit student feedback is an excellent way to get informal feedback.
  4. Be flexible. If you have a student with a hearing impairment or another barrier that makes audio feedback a less than optimal option for them, be prepared to provide them with written feedback or another alternative.

Are you ready to try something new? Have you tried using audio feedback in your course? Tell us how it went!

References:

Image by mtmmonline on Pixabay.

Note: This post was based on a presentation given at the STAR Symposium in February 2019. For more information and a full list of references, see the presentation slide deck.

 

Take the sting out of grading

Posted on by | Leave a reply

“…expertise is learned from prolonged experience with good feedback on mistakes.” – Daniel Kahneman

Students are eager to receive meaningful feedback quickly. With hopes of improving their class performance, timely and substantive feedback is essential to helping students get on track before it is too late. Yet, knowing this doesn’t change why feedback and grading sometimes gets put off, despite our best intentions – it can appear daunting and time consuming.

8 ideas on how to take the sting out of providing feedback:

Self-checks

Not all feedback requires your intervention or even a grade. Can you set-up an activity where students can check their understanding and get immediate feedback? A simple solution is to create a short practice activity (e.g. multiple choice quiz, drag and drop interactive) which provides immediate results. The prompt feedback supports students to move on to more challenging work with confidence. In some systems, including Canvas, you can provide comments for wrong answers that clues them into where they could find the right answer.

Screencasts

As a student, I really enjoyed a course where the faculty member used screencasts to give feedback. I never had to schedule time during her office hours to feel like we were sitting down and having a conversation about my work. Her tone was approachable, I could rewatch the feedback to make sure I understood it, and it was so personal. It was also a nice break from reading text.

When I later heard her share at a faculty training event that she used this method because it was faster than providing text feedback, I was shocked – that had never occurred to me as a student! She has found that by using screencasts she doesn’t have to labor over editing her words to make sure what she is trying to convey doesn’t get interpreted the wrong way. She saves a lot of time by making them intentionally brief and informal, all while providing students an experience that feels relatable and relaxed.

You can check out this Faculty Focus article on Using Screencasts for Formative and Summative Assessment to learn more.

Campus Partners

Could you require students to see a campus partner, like a writing center, to review a first draft of an assignment? Of course, you will want to discuss your idea with these offices before designing your assignments. If they are willing, they can help you by catching a lot of simple errors in students’ work, so you can focus more of your grading on the content in a later iteration. Also, feedback from multiple people broadens the scope of perspectives a student receives, which deepens their learning.

Here at OSU, you might contact the Ecampus Student Success Counselors, OSU Library, Math Learning Center, Online Writing Lab, or other offices to chat about options for partnership.

Self-assessments

You might be surprised how honest students will be about their own work if they are given the opportunity to grade themselves. Providing a rubric and asking students to respond to each criteria can be a helpful way to encourage students to take a moment to step back, reflect on what they have done, and provide suggestions to themselves on how they could improve.

Group feedback

Providing group feedback quickly allows the ‘go getters’ to get started with at least some advice from you while you are finishing giving more specific grades and comments. While you want to use group feedback sparingly, because students need personalized feedback that relates to their specific work, it can help you to prevent a lot of individual email questions. If you are able to offer group feedback that notes class-wide trends more quickly than individual feedback, it shows that you are reviewing the work and paying attention to how students are doing.

Text expanders

Do you often find yourself writing the same types of comments for students over and over? Text expanders allow you to write a small string of text and it expands into a larger piece of text. Some ideas:

  1. APA => Please review the APA in-text citation guidelines at Purdue OWL.
  2. Rubric => See the rubric requirements regarding this section.
  3. Great => This is great work – way to go!
  4. Research => What research are you using as a basis for your claim? What evidence can you provide for this claim?
  5. Replies => This discussion forum required two replies. Please make sure to post at least two replies in subsequent discussion forums to receive full credit.

If you are unsure where to start, check-out this instructor video You Type Too Much! Use a Text Expander To Save Time from Cengage Learning (duration 01:59).

Social pressure

Consider leveraging social pressure through assignments that are public, like e-portfolios or blogs. It’s amazing how much our work improves when we think it will be viewed by others. If students are presenting their work in a public forum, they may take more ownership over the quality, which reduces how much effort is required by you to grade. You will want to check with your instructional designer on how to do this while still adhering to FERPA.

Chocolate

I hate looking at finances, so when it is time to go over my budget, I put on relaxing music and treat myself to a favorite chocolate. If grading is painful, creating a positive ritual around it can make it easier to engage. Are there ways you can make your environment more inviting and focused?

If you are interested in exploring any of these ideas in more detail, contact your instructional designer to discuss what could work for your course and your teaching style. Remember, meaningful feedback will help your students focus on the learning, rather than just the grade.

By: Amy Munger