In the online environment, one of the most important places to relate to and teach students is through assignment feedback. So much of what we do as teachers happens there. When we review a student’s work, we are evaluating whether or not they are learning the material and helping them make their own corrections to improve throughout a course. It is essential and vital that feedback happens in a timely and clear manner. It also has to be substantive so that students will know what to do the next time an assignment or task like that comes around. No doubt you have had experiences where the instructor feedback has been helpful and those when you found yourself more confused when reading the instructor’s feedback than you were going into the assignment to begin with.

So what works and what doesn’t work for you? Let’s talk about it.

Directions

1. Think about examples of feedback that instructors have given you that have either been helpful or unhelpful.
2. What will you do in your feedback to student work that will be the most effective to help them reach learning objectives in the course?
3. Compare an example from your experience as a student with what you will do as an instructor.