Feedback As A Learning Tool & Recent Research In Distance Learning

Assessment for Learning (AFL)

Mordechai Miron (University of Tel Aviv, Israel)

“Assessment for Learning (AFL) ” refers to all those activities undertaken by teachers and by their students in assessing themselves, which provide information to be used as feedback to modify the teaching and learning activities in which they are engaged. In classrooms where AFL is practiced, students are encouraged to be more active in their learning and associated assessment. The paper presents an example of AFL which was used in a freshmen course on Measurement and Evaluation. Using an “open instrument” the students reacted in each class meeting and their reactions constituted the basis for improving the next class meeting.

Implementing Effective Student Feedback at LISOF, South Africa: A Student Case Study

Ashleigh Cohen (LISOF, South Africa)

Enhancing the learning journey of a student requires feedback that is thoughtful, relevant and in-depth. Nicol (2010) as cited by UNSW Sydney (2018) stated that “feedback is valuable when it is received, understood and acted on. How students analyse, discuss and act on feedback is as important as the quality of the feedback itself.” Feedback is by far one of the most important activities undertaken by educators in the realm of higher education. A student journey devoid of reliable, clear, consistent and efficient feedback is a journey devoid growth, cognitive development, intellectual challenge, and possibly even success.

The Relationship between Emotional Intelligence, Inclusion, and Learning Motivation

Waleed Dallasheh and Ihab Zubeidat (Sakhnin College for Teacher Education, Israel)

This study examines the relationship between emotional intelligence, inclusion, and learning motivation from Arab society special education teacher’s perspective. 406 teachers were asked to answer the self-report questionnaires assessing the above aspects. The results indicated a significant positive association between emotional intelligence, inclusion, and students’ learning motivation. Inclusion was found as a mediating variable between emotional intelligence and learning motivation. The findings also reveal differences in emotional intelligence and inclusion in some demographic variables. Our research conclusion indicates that teachers’ intelligent use of emotional intelligence and inclusion ability predicting learning motivation among students, especially those with learning disorders.

Reflections on Feedback — Engaging Students to Feed Forward

Ashley Le Vin (University of Glasgow, UK)

Feedback is important for students to learn and advance academically as they can reflect on it and consider how to improve future work. Without feedback, students may find it hard to improve upon past mistakes. However, feedback is not a passive process and students must actively engage with and reflect on their feedback to understand it and consider how it can feed forward to improve future assessments. This study investigates whether including short written reflections on previous feedback into assessments can lead to increased student engagement with their feedback and an increase in its perceived helpfulness.

00:18:07 Noam Zadoff: Hi. Good morning!
00:18:24 ashleigh: Good morning everyone
00:18:43 Janina Tosic: HI Ahley, not to worry! Take your time with your daughter or son!
00:18:54 Janina Tosic: Good morning everyone!
00:19:59 Anne Tierney: Hi Tzachi, Elizabeth
00:20:14 Elizabeth Black: Good morning!
00:20:55 ashleigh: I absolutely agree with you. across the world we really do have similar challenges
00:21:07 Elizabeth Black: Yes – you can almost see the relief at this shared experience sometimes
00:21:21 Anne Tierney: Hi Eric
00:21:45 Anne Tierney: Hi Ashleigh
00:23:24 Elizabeth Black: I would echo that – it is working very well
00:23:37 Elizabeth Black: Thank you
00:24:36 Anne Tierney: @Caren yes I think it is important, vital even, to get outside our immediate environment
00:25:10 Anne Tierney: Hi Sigal
00:26:53 Ashley Le Vin: gin please – in a tea cup!
00:27:11 Anne Tierney: @Ashley, you’re posh!
00:27:36 Ashley Le Vin: oh very posh @Anne! or just devious…
00:27:42 Anne Tierney: Hi David
00:28:02 David Nicol: Hi Anne
00:30:40 Elizabeth Black: That makes sense
00:30:47 michelle macmahon: Good morning, afternoon, evening – my apologies for no webcam today. Michelle
00:31:16 Anne Tierney: Hi Michelle
00:31:28 Anne Tierney: Hi Michael
00:31:30 Janina Tosic: HI Michelle, no Problem! Thanks for joining us!
00:32:12 michelle macmahon: Janina – it looks like you are on Zoom since Wed morning. I’m impressed!
00:33:57 Janina Tosic: 🙂 I hope I don’t really look like that (tired)
00:36:35 Anne Tierney: Hi Wendy
00:36:57 Anne Tierney: Hi Alexandra
00:37:08 Alexandra Lehmann: Hi everybody!
00:37:13 Wendy Anderson: hello! looking forward to today!
00:38:38 Tzachi milgrom: I talked right now to Mordechai Miron. He apologises but he has problems with his computer and cannot join the conference.
00:42:42 Anne Tierney: @Tzachi thank you for letting us know. That’s a shame. I was looking forward to seeing Mordechai.
00:43:10 Anne Tierney: Hi Noelia, Mordechai
00:43:28 Noelia Roman: hi Anne
00:45:00 Alexandra Lehmann: Problem: How to give individual Feedback to 90 students in just one of my 8 classes every week, and that on a written base?!
00:45:39 Elizabeth Black: Does it have to be written?
00:46:06 Alexandra Lehmann: In a digital Semester with Internet and technique not working reliable…?!
00:46:41 Elizabeth Black: Of course – need more coffee, sorry
00:47:07 Ashley Le Vin: perhaps using a marking rubric sheet with either tick boxes or a scale of performance where there is marking criteria showing what areas they have done well or not so well in and then a comments box to perhaps give a sentence or two for each student to personalise a bit more
00:47:31 Anne Tierney: Hi Waleed
00:47:44 Janina Tosic: I think Feedback can be build in in any teaching/Learning activity without much extra work. Every comment we make in class concerning something students do is Feedback…. Making this explicit and explaining to students how they can use Feedback to foster their Learning along the lines of what David et al. presented in the past days would be a great start.
00:48:21 Elizabeth Black: even using a rubric is a lot for 90 x 8. can you use peer feedback?
00:49:01 Janina Tosic: I like that idea Ashley! It takes off some Feedback load but allows us to add individual aspects
00:49:25 Alexandra Lehmann: I guess what Janina said is a Point: You have to make it transparent to the students what you’re doing…
00:49:29 David Nicol: Feedback is internally generated by students out of performance information – it could come from comments but that is not always best according to research on comparison
00:49:46 Anne Tierney: Thank you Ashleigh
00:49:58 Elizabeth Black: @Janina – I think the problem is that when there is no conversation (asynchronous only), this opportunity is lost
00:50:07 Alexandra Lehmann: clapping! thanks
00:51:01 michelle macmahon: Ashleigh – great presentation. What changes do you recommend for practitioners in your college?
00:51:04 Janina Tosic: yes, Elizabeth! That was my Problem this semester
00:51:44 Alexandra Lehmann: raising Hand now 😉
00:51:44 David Nicol: Ashleigh – good presentation
00:53:00 David Nicol: Regarding Vygotsky – we always think of people scaffolding others but I have been exploring deploying resources as scaffolds
00:53:00 Ashley Le Vin: great talk Ashleigh and interesting findings
00:55:08 Elizabeth Black: I think that many people read the harshest interpretation into feedback – and focus overly on negative comments, missing out on positive notes while doing so
00:55:52 Anne Tierney: @Elizabeth I agree. We are often vert harsh on ourselves
00:55:57 Anne Tierney: very
00:55:58 Ashley Le Vin: to try and target this Elizabeth we give comments on ‘Areas for improvement’ but also give comments on ‘strengths’
00:56:10 Elizabeth Black: The emotion work involved for both students and teachers comes through as a recurring theme in these discussions
00:56:13 Ashley Le Vin: although sometimes it can be hard to find the ‘strengths’!
00:56:13 Tzachi milgrom: Giving and accepting feedback is a cultural issue. It cannot work in vacuum. You should build the right environment slowly and than make it as a necessary part of the teaching0learning process
00:56:14 David Nicol: Dialogue with others and with materials together – so comments and exemplars together – because students want examples of what good performance is as well as to discuss their work
00:57:13 Elizabeth Black: Ashley – we do this – but still I find that students pass over the positive and dwell on the negative. This is why I think tat revisiting feedback at a later date is important as well.
00:57:40 Alexandra Lehmann: @ tzachi: yes, and ist not only having to learn the culture of University, but also reflecting on the culture of where the individual Student Comes from and his*her learning experience.
00:59:03 Ashley Le Vin: Elizabeth- yes i definately think that taking time to go back to feedback is really important
01:02:03 Ashley Le Vin: @Anne and @Janina, as my talk will be earlier than planned i will need to pop off screen for a few minutes at the end of Waleed’s talk to get my little girl settled in front of a cartoon downstairs – otherwise it will be a car crash of a talk with a 3 year old co-presenter – although i am sure she would give us lots of feedback!
01:05:40 Anne Tierney: @Ashley do what you have to do, get mini-Ashley comfortable and come back to us for your presentation.
01:06:40 Ashley Le Vin: Cheers Anne
01:08:36 Janina Tosic: NO Problem, Ashley! Take your time, we will discuss and start when you are back. Don’t stress over this, we all understand!
01:10:32 Ashley Le Vin: thanks Janina
01:16:27 Ashley Le Vin: @Anne and @Janina – i am good to start whenever now, my husband finished his work call early and has relieved me of childcare, now there is only the risk of the dog joining the talk!
01:16:57 Janina Tosic: Thank you for letting us know Ashley! Dogs and Kids are always welcome .)
01:17:06 Anne Tierney: @Ashley don’t worry about it – co-presenters are cool
01:17:35 Ashley Le Vin: Moose is pretty cool – Effie is just loud!
01:18:41 Anne Tierney: Hi Claudia
01:20:54 Anne Tierney: Thank you Waleed, that was fascinating
01:22:49 ashleigh: Very interesting study. I would love to do something similar at my institution
01:23:24 Anne Tierney: waleed.dall@gmail.com
01:23:54 David Nicol: Very interesting study Waleed
01:30:14 Anne Tierney: Hi Silke
01:30:55 Silke Bock: Hi, I cannot hear you and have to come back again.
01:31:53 Anne Tierney: Hi Silke, better this time?
01:32:15 Silke Bock: Yes, thanks, glad to be here.
01:35:44 ashleigh: Love your cartoon inserts 🙂
01:38:54 David Nicol: Simple and elegant intervention
01:40:26 Noelia Roman: haha I love puppies
01:43:17 Anne Tierney: Hi Herman
01:45:39 Elizabeth Black: We have a ‘writing guide’ for the programme so that formatting expectations are agreed for all
01:47:01 David Nicol: Everyone should do this with regards to teacher comments. Only downside, as Ashley notes is that for some it creates a bit of a dependency relationship – you need teacher comments to learn. This is why people use peer review. That is why I like giving them different examples and ask them to compare and write what they learn from that – then they see their own feedback generation and so do you as teacher
01:49:55 Anne Tierney: @David, you pre-empted my question!
01:51:19 Wendy Anderson: fantastic talk, Ashley! lots to think about. sorry i now have to leave for a meeting – will catch up on the discussion later
01:51:21 Anne Tierney: Really enjoyed that presentation, Ashley.
01:51:23 Elizabeth Black: that was great – thanks!
01:51:46 Silke Bock: thankyou very much
01:52:08 Noelia Roman: thank you that was fabulous!!
01:52:40 David Nicol: Good and thoughtful implementation
01:55:09 Alexandra Lehmann: gotta go – see you in the next zoom Meeting!
01:55:21 Anne Tierney: Bye Alexandra
01:58:16 Noelia Roman: sorry everyone just need to get dinner ready. see you at the next session
01:58:25 Noelia Roman: thank you for these talks!
01:58:33 Anne Tierney: Bye, Noelia
02:01:06 David Nicol: I can’t help saying again that all feedback is self-generated from making a comparison of own work against relevant information (e.g. comments) but if you ask them to deliberately and explicitly make other comparisons as well this changes everything (e.g text explanations, problem solutions, theory explanations). Even when participating in a discussion after doing some work students have to compare what they have produced against their interpretation of what you say.
02:15:06 Anne Tierney: It’s a heuristic as well. We really need to experience it to understand it.
02:21:10 Anne Tierney: Great session, really interesting.
02:21:11 ashleigh: Thank you all for the opportunity
02:21:13 Elizabeth Black: Thanks to all the presenters this morning
02:21:27 Ashley Le Vin: Thank you all for a really lovely discussion
02:21:42 David Nicol: Thanks very enjoyable session
02:21:48 Elizabeth Black: Glass of wine?
02:21:53 Anne Tierney: Bye
02:21:59 Birgit Pitscheider: Thank you
02:22:12 Michael: Thank you very much.

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