Audio-feedback

• Background – why I did it.• My experiences – what I did.• Student feedback – how did it go?

http://audiofeedback.wetpaint.com/

AssessmentMY AIMS:• Apply clear and

transparent criteria on how to assess student work

• Be fair and consistent (from the beginning to the end of the day!)

• Give useful feedback that the students can learn from ie positive but also stretching

MY WORRIES:• Students paying no

attention to my carefully crafted feedback comments and only looking at the mark

• Students not collecting marked work after the module has finished

Assessment – Multiple purposes

To make academic judgements on student achievement

To help our students improve their performance and enhance achievement

Assessment for Grading: Assessment for Learning:

•Programme Assessment Boards•Module Assessment Boards

•Assessment Criteria•Formative Assessment•Feedback

What am I supposed to do to get marks?

Figure 2: From Composition Chronicle: Newsletter for Writing Teachers 8 (3), April 1995, p. 11.

What do I expect…?How will I grade it…?How can I write helpful / stretching feedback..?

Responsibility

FairnessTransparencyInternal and

external moderation

Audio feedback

• I sat with my laptop and an old headset with microphone.

• Aimed to say something: – POSITIVE– IMPORTANT– PRACTICAL

•Generic feedback

•Individual feedback – I felt I was really talking to the student and that I could be more specific and personal. Each sound file was 3-5 minutes long (….) which enabled me to give much more than the few lines written on a piece of work or described in a generic feedback sheet

I enjoyed the

marking!

Student feedback• ‘After listening to the audio files

for the feedback of both pieces of coursework, I believe that it is a great idea. It allows a personal one to one feeling of feedback while sitting at home. It saves trailing to uni to find out the feedback with no guarantee of catching the lecturer.’

• ‘I second that xxx, Great Idea for audio feedback, surely we should have a whole section for podcasts of all sorts, it was nice to consider Dr Anne going personal on each audio recording. Hope this is the future for feedback! Hope it is used in the future, good idea!!!!!’

• ‘Wow this was kool to listen to, easy clear and straightforward, its the kind of feedback you cant refuse to hear, once you press play you get the good points and the bad points, when i came on to listen to it, i was like oh dear this could be sad news and was scared of listening to it but i like the completeness of the feedback, sure things that have been helpful and i think i will be better doing the samething now even without seeing the returned work. Thanks Anne and i think this was a great idea and surely audio feedback is a plus’

• ‘i did not notice the audio feedback until i came on webct to look for the exam results. this system is really good especially being all the way in malaysia. thanks for the feedback’

FTDL5 project: Engaging students with assessment feedback

• Peer review was adopted to encourage students to discuss and compare their understanding of scientific writing and the assessment criteria.

– ‘Step 1. Tutor leads discussion on assessment criteria and peer review process.

– This session allows staff to prepare students for peer review, to set the ground rules (which is seen as important by students who can be concerned about the equity of peer review) and to introduce students to the assessment process and criteria.

– Step 2. Students bring drafts for peer review.– Students may be more likely to engage with this process if they are

asked to bring diagrams or outlines of their assignments for discussion rather than a partial or complete draft of their work.

– Step 3. In -class discussions monitored by staff.’

https://mw.brookes.ac.uk/display/eswaf/Peer+review+micro-+projects

Tutor workshop• The practicalities of writing - Monica Price Extracts

from a tutor workshop: what do we value in your work?• Writing in your own words - Noel Carter Extracts from

a tutor workshop: what do we value in your work?• Focus on the question - Keith Thomas Extracts from a

tutor workshop: what do we value in your work?• Getting to grips with the literature - Mark Davies

Extracts from a tutor workshop: what do we value in your work?

• Strengths and weaknesses - Poorna Gunasekera Extracts from a tutor workshop: what do we value in your work?

• An outsiders view of the discussions - Joan O'Keefe Extracts from a tutor workshop: what do we value in your work?

Student feedback – to date• ‘I thought the feedback was excellent, the whole idea of

audio feedback is great and I definitely support its use. It helped highlight the important points of improvement and the fact that your voice could be heard made it more relevant and 'true'.

I have a learnt a great deal. Thank you.’

• ‘I found the audio feedback very useful and better than lecturers notes written on a piece of work. However, i dont think that the generic audio feeback is as useful as the personal audio feedback that was given for each group's work.’

April 2010

‘I think the audio feedback was good, there was a lot of encouragement and helpful advice. Also thank you for getting the marks back so quickly’.

‘The audio feedback is very helpful with the pointing out of my strengths and weaknesses. I really appreciate it and I am very happy with my marks also. I am really glad to hear the good feedback from you because this is very meaningful to me as I get back rewards from every effort that I have paid out for so long time to improve my skills in doing lab report. I will also improve my weaknesses to produce better lab reports in the future. Thanks for getting back the marks so quickly also’.

http://audiofeedback.wetpaint.com/page/Voices

Experiences

• Audio-feedback:– Portfolios (interesting)– Critical paper reviews (hard!)– Lab reports (easy)

• Podcasts of key points:http://drannecunningham.podbean.com/

• Increasing use of video clips (eg iTunesU etc)

Final thoughts• Rewarding process – I feel the effort I put into marking is

being more effectively shared with my students.• Almost ‘micro-teaching’ and enables mini-tutorials that

are focussed and specific. • Feed-forward - I aim to link my comments to future work

the students will do in other modules with my colleagues.• Universally positive feedback from students: I am a

convert!

‘well, again. The feedback is awesome because most of my weakness had been mentioned which is going to help me improve my skills on critical review. I will further my scope on the wider region and not only on the paper itself so i think i will do better next time. thanks again for the audio feedback.”’