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Giving grades and providing feedback to your students is really crucial to the entire learning process. Providing timely, plus useful feedback will make all the difference for all the students. Along with managing all other requirements of the faculty and teaching duties, how could you possibly significant, however not essentially an expeditious aspect of instruction the value it deserves?

There are several studies going on how student feedback system or the latest technologies could be used to make feedback better for the students. Most of these studies are looking into deep questions and seeking answers for them to gather the right kind of tool, which would give insight into how to provide better student care.

Feedback techniques are found to be one of the best to understand students. However, how many of the following tools have you used with students?

  • Rubrics
  • Annotations
  • Audio file of feedback
  • Video file of feedback
  • Peer review

Maximizing the feedback tools

In case you are using just one or two of the following methods, you could also try others to find out how your students feel about it. There is a Canvas tool that encompasses all the techniques. Check the tools mentioned below:

  • How can I add a rubric to my school curriculum?
  • How may I add annotated comments in the student submissions?
  • How can I leave a video or audio file that comes with feedback?
  • How can I use the peer review assignments within my curriculum?

In case you are already providing feedback using annotated comments, why would you think of changing? Providing feedback to students in 2 to a fortnight workday of a learning assignment or topic ensures it has relevance and can be integrated into the process of learning. After this point, the students start working on other topics. Trying a fresh technique could help you receive feedback from your students within that significant window of learning. A new method or technique could also become a welcome change of speed for you in your high grading periods.

How could using audio comments or video comments save time for you and make for better feedback?

It would provide you the opportunity to personalize your message. Beginning the comment with the student’s name makes it absolutely clear that you are addressing the works specifically.

  • You could easily relate your nuance on a tough subject, just like you would around your in-person hours at the office.
  • You could demonstrate a workflow or a process more distinctly.
  • The written text could sometimes become really tough to interpret, but using your intonation or expression, you have the chance of diminishing your miscommunications and opportunities.
  • The process where you can create this kind of feedback can help you feel highly connected to students. When they receive it, they would feel more connected to you even outside the classroom.
  • The process where you create this pattern of feedback may help you feel highly connected to the students. When they receive it, they feel highly connected to you outside your classroom.

Attempt this

Audio files could be your best method of providing quick yet substantial feedback. Record what you wish to say right in the Canvas in under-5 minutes clips that remain attached to every attachment. When students go to check their feedback, they are able to playback this file in your student feedback software.

Understand what your students need, remember that some of the students would need written feedback. Let students know that you are giving audio feedback for an assignment, whereas a student could request that comment to be texted in case of a requirement. Audio files need not be the sole way that you give your students feedback throughout the course.

Good feedback – what is it?

To begin with, feedback isn’t just the same as criticism. Criticism is a different thing, and a lot of valuable, techniques most of the time needed for some academic work. But the focus of criticism is on faultfinding and judgment, whereas feedback is rather corrective and evaluative. Criticism is mostly viewed as being highly rigorous, yet providing feedback rather than criticism doesn’t mean that you relax the standards of excellence. Rather, feedback helps in the evaluation of learning that occurred at the end of the unit or lesson. Frequent, timely, balanced, and specific feedback is what is required the most.

Attempt the following

To complete assignments, peer reviews are highly useful. Ask the students to review the early drafts of any project as a team before they submit the later versions. piHappiness comes with an excellent student feedback app for peer-reviewing features. You can create the rubrics for the students to use or to allow them in creating their own. This way they would not just help you with the burden that comes of grading but also the learning skills that would help them assess their personal work through the entire course.

Before you start

  1. You need to remember that technology won’t solve all problems. Certain student feedback software would support your instructional work but might not do all as you would like.
  2. You barely need any practice to create good audio and video feedback. Avoid creating unnecessarily long videos or audio of your feedback. Moreover, don’t stress yourself for it to be perfect, yet practice a few times before you put your feedback in these forms so that it is not absolutely novice.
  3. There could be stuffing of information in a video or in extended comments. Provide clear and focussed feedback that gives a clear understanding of the student’s work to receive the maximum out of the energy you put into the feedback.
  4. If you have the plan for technology adoption, look at your syllabus and take a call on which exam or assignment would make maximum sense to test out the newer feedback strategies. Try a couple of new techniques and slowly develop your technology feedback tool.

To conclude:

There are a lot of many advantages colleges and universities are leveraging using the student feedback system. The modern system of education demands that you understand your students well and feedback is a great way of understanding that. Gather the best student feedback software and create a new kind of education system that is solely based on the opinion of the end-users.

Chanakya Kyatham

Chanakya Kyatham

Chanakya Kyatham is a Senior Digital Marketing Manager at ParamInfo Computer Services Pvt Ltd and piHappiness. He is passionate about topics such as SaaS, productivity, Android and iOS, general technology, and business.

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