Comments? A reflection on feedback
Being a student again is a learning experience in more than one way, and my first major assignment has me re-learning some of the great lessons I’ve learned about feedback.
A keynote speaker at the 2017 Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education’s (STLHE) annual conference in Halifax posed this question to the audience, “Are you giving feedback, or are you just writing comments?”. He wasn’t talking about what instructors were writing but the context in which they were writing those comments, ultimately drawing the line that feedback statements on a paper without an opportunity for students to do improve were just comments.
In my course, my instructor has found a great way for that feedback to happen with opportunity to improve. For some context, the course revolves around a large project: a research proposal. This project is due in three major parts: an introduction, a literature review, and a methodology (as well as some smaller good practice assignments meant to further scaffold the process). By focusing on this major project my instructor has been able to add feedback due dates, these are dates where the assignment is submitted regardless of its state for the instructor to provide feedback and only feedback. No grade. This pre-assessment lets the instructor and the student focus on the strong and the weak without an immediate punishment. And when the submission is due for summative assessment the instructor already knows where to look to see if learning and development have taken root.
Another large feedback experience for me annually is the Bachelor of Education ePortfolios. These are portfolios put together around core teaching skills by the pre-service teachers which are assessed by teaching advisors and faculty. As a program piece the student gets an opportunity to really be looked at as a future teacher, displaying the work that they’ve done, talking about the things they’ve learned and have experienced, and highlighting the questions they are seeking answers for.
Both of these approaches are no doubt an investment of the instructor in their students, but the pay-off is great. So when you think about the feedback you provide perhaps there’s an opportunity to highlight the feedback and not just the grade. How can you change the context of your comments?
