Providing Feedback

There are many ways to provide feedback to students in an online course. Faculty Focus offers these tips for providing effective and constructive feedback.

The Chronicle of Higher Education offers this advice guide that covers the essentials and key qualities of good feedback, using audio and video tools for feedback, and tips on getting started.

Feedback is any response from a teacher in regard to a student’s performance or behavior. It can be verbal, written or gestural. The purpose of feedback in the learning process is to improve a student’s performance- definitely not put a damper on it. The ultimate goal of feedback is to provide students with an “I can do this” attitude.

Assessment is a critical component of the online classroom. It provides students with an idea of their progress in a course, identifies individual strengths and weaknesses, and ultimately serves as the measure of whether students achieve the course learning objectives. It’s also important that assessments engage students and prepare them with the skills they'll need in future courses, practicums, and even their careers.

When you assign a grade and offer general or individualized feedback to your students, you help them focus on their progress, show that you share that focus, and increase your online presence. You can also use grading and feedback to influence your students’ performance in a positive way, encourage their participation in the course, and promote course content.

A short video on how to deepen our learning by using substantive comments in our course written discussions on line.

A short video featuring Rick Wormeli about formative and summative assessment

Lack of meaningful feedback happens to be one of the biggest challenges online learners face. So, how do you create a conducive learning environment in online classrooms and prevent students from feeling isolated? Here are 6 ways to provide meaningful feedback to online learners.