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.- Laura Reynolds.
Feedback plays a very important role in the education of the students. Any learning process is incomplete without it. Constructive and healthy feedback help students to identify, learn, improve and retain information more effectively.
Enhancing the feedback – tips for online teachers
Online teaching is a modern and advanced version of teaching and learning. With everything being virtual, feedback is also exchanged in the same way. Let us discuss some tips that will help teachers to enhance their feedback to make it more meaningful for the learners.
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Give clear and evident instructions
Table of Contents
In order to give feedback to the students about their performance and submissions, providing clear-cut instructions and your expectations to them is very important. If students submit the work without any prior knowledge, the mistakes or wrong format will be followed which will also affect the quality of feedback given. Wrong formats and procedures followed lead to wrong submissions. Sometimes students don’t even receive feedback from their teachers. For example, if a student doesn’t submit the given task under the right category, place, or email address, teachers don’t receive it and hence such students are not able to get back the responses from the teachers. In this regard, teachers must explain clear-cut expectations and procedures to the learners on an online teaching platform.
- Tell students where they can submit the work to get back the feedback. For example, if you are using a mobile teacher app, uploading it there is also fine. Or you can also provide an email address where students can mail you the work.
- Provide them with the last date of submission. When students submit work before the deadlines, it prevents delay and hence timely feedback can be given back by the teachers.
- Explain to them what procedure they have to follow. For example, writing an assignment and uploading a scanned copy of it or directly sending the original pictures. Every teacher has their requirements, explaining them to the learners helps in developing a systematic approach to learning.
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Do detailing
With the help of LMS software, collecting and maintaining records of the student performance in classes and via home assignments is very systematic. The teacher can maintain and keep the grades and scores with themselves but giving students a little detail along with their scores and marks is very helpful for the learners. This will make feedback more meaningful and actionable for the learners. Only giving the grade or score is not sufficient and enough for providing a good understanding to the students about how they are performing and where they need improvement. Giving or adding written remarks by the teachers is sure of great help for learners. Teachers can specify what is impressive in their work and what are places where improvisation can be done. Being actionable is highly effective to give proper feedback to the learners.
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Audio format for responding
To make feedback more useful and meaningful for the learners, sending audio messages to the students can also be done by the teachers. We all know that listening is far more effective than any other means to get a proper understanding of a topic. Integrating and involving audio messages to send feedback to the students is of great help. If you are using a mobile teacher app for conducting your virtual classes, leaving an audio message in the chat box or the homework submission section can be practised by the teachers. Speaking your response and feedback rather than writing helps in proper understanding and also encourages interaction and communication between the teacher and the students. Retaining and improving the quality of information can be achieved via this process.
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Be well-timed and punctual
Delays and late feedback must be avoided. The instant the feedback is received, the quicker the improvement will take place. Timely feedback is very important for the students. When students have to wait for a longer time to receive the teacher’s response and their results, it makes them quite anxious, stressed, and pressured. This affects their present academic performance and other life activities as well. To provide timely responses to the students, teachers can use LMS software. This helps them in managing their work efficiently in online teaching platforms. To make students actively engaged and involved in their studies and to keep them on the right track, teachers should give priority to being punctual with sending feedback.
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Encourage student-student feedback
Feedback is not limited just to occur between an instructor and the learners. It is much more than this. Student-to-student sharing of feedback and suggestions is also a great technique to make learning better and enhanced for the learners. This means when students see or listen to each other and review, provide their views and suggestions about the same. A teacher can include activities such as group discussions, recitations, etc where students can listen and interact properly. Teachers should later encourage them to review one another’s performance and give feedback regarding it.
Conclusion
The above-mentioned tips and techniques will help teachers to make their feedback more meaningful and appropriate for online learners. What students must remember is that teachers are always there for improving their students and make them a better version of themselves every day. Therefore taking feedback constructively and in a supportive manner is very important. This will help learners to improve and enhance their learning and academic performance. Teachers must follow these practices to make their feedback more accurate in this regard.
