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Instructional design

Common Accessibility Challenges Faced by Students and How We Can Help Fix Them

As part of serving the people of Wisconsin, UW Extended Campus strives to ensure every student, no matter what, can earn a high-quality and accessible postsecondary education. In service to this goal, the UWEX Instructional Design team and faculty work together to fix the common accessibility challenges faced by UW students. In fact, the UWEX ID team works hard to check our courses to address many potential accessibility issues before they ever become problematic. Checking images, HTML code, text, videos, language, links, and more is part of our process for every course.

What about your course announcements? We know things can change and you may need to share other learning resources or web links with your students in an announcement. While the ID team is available to lend a hand, we want you to feel confident in ensuring your announcements or other course updates are as accessible as the rest of the course.

In the video below, see how three common challenges might appear in a course announcement, and how they can be fixed using the accessibility tool already integrated into Canvas. The rest of this article reviews some challenges beyond those addressed in the video.

See the video on MS Stream.
Download the “Common Accessibility Challenges and How to Fix Them” infographic above or the accessible PDF to share with your students or colleagues.

Further Issues, Their Causes, and How We Fix Them

There are several other accessibility issues that the ID team addresses during the design of a course. Check out how we fix the issues below.

Issue: Students who are deaf or hard of hearing aren’t getting the key information from a video. 

The cause of this issue 

The video likely doesn’t have a transcription or closed captioning (or the captions are inaccurate). 

How we fix it 

If there is a video as a learning resource, we need to verify that the video has captions or a transcription. Resources made with UWEX Media Services automatically have both. To resolve a lack of captions or a transcript, we might reach out to the instructor to either make them or find a new video. 

Best practices 

To make videos as accessible as possible, we comply with following best practices: 

  • Captions are best for videos while transcriptions are best for audio-only resources. 
  • If using auto-generated captioning, rewatch the video to check that the captions line up with the audio, there are no critical errors, and fix likely mistakes, such as names or acronyms. 

For more information, visit the Transcripts page from the Web Accessibility Initiative as well as the Captions/Subtitles page from the Web Accessibility Initiative.

Issue: Students using assistive technology can’t distinguish links when searching through them. 

The cause(s) of this issue 

Screen readers will read all the text that is on the screen, including URLs, letter by letter (“h-t-t-p-colon-slash-slash-w-w-w-dot…”). Furthermore, screen readers can jump from link to link for easier navigation, but knowing the correct link to select can be a challenge if they all say, “Click here.” 

How we fix it 

We make each link on a page succinct, descriptive, and unique. Consider the differences between the following three examples: 

  1. Here is the website for the Web Accessibility Initiative: https://www.w3.org/WAI/fundamentals/accessibility-intro/.
  2. Click here to view the Web Accessibility Initiative website.
  3. The Web Accessibility Initiative website has plenty of resources to help you. 

The third example has the most accessible link because it is unique and concisely describes the link’s destination. 

Best practices 

For clear and accessible links, we comply with following best practices: 

  • Avoid phrases like “click here” or “read more.” Even if the student only reads the linked text, they should know exactly where the link takes them. 

Issue: Students using assistive technology have difficulty finding the information they need on the page. 

The cause(s) of this issue 

In addition to the challenges described in the video, there are a few other reasons a webpage can be inaccessible. One is an inefficient or clunky presentation of information. Just as an entirely written-out URL can disrupt the smooth reading of a paragraph or list, the use of a table to structure a page could prevent a logical interpretation of the page by assistive technology. 

How we fix it 

As mentioned above, w make sure links are succinct, descriptive, and unique. In addition, we check that tables are only used to present tabular data. If the situation demands a table to help us structure the page layout, we will change the HTML code to set the table to role=”presentation”, such as in the image below. 

In the image, the HTML code of a table is shown. In the table tag, the role attribute has been set to presentation.

Best practices 

To ensure the course’s pages present information undisrupted, we comply with following best practices: 

  • In the body of the text, write in short, clear sentences and paragraphs, and use list formatting as appropriate. 
  • When using tables to present data, include headers and a caption. 

Small Course Changes, Big EDI Impacts

Introduction

Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion. Three small words with huge meaning! So what do these words mean to our Instructional Design team? They mean creating courses where students see their lived experiences valued and represented and space for their voices to be heard. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to developing courses with an equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) perspective. What this looks like varies from subject to subject and course to course.

EDI can sometimes feel like an all-or-nothing task. It may feel overwhelming to figure out where to start or how to incorporate it into your course. In that regard, EDI is no different than other course design principles. For example, you may start your course development with one or two really engaging, dynamic discussions or one authentic assessment. And that is great! When the next revision comes around, you may find another assessment to modify or resource to update. EDI is similar. The challenge with EDI can sometimes be where to start. To help, we’ve created the Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Reflection Document. This document can be used during new course development and revisions to help identify areas where EDI is incorporated well and areas where it could be improved. From that information, we create an EDI action plan for your course.

An Example of Using the EDI Reflection Document

A recent example of how to use this document comes from Lifetime Wellness and Self-Growth, a course that is part of the Collaborative AAS program. Chris Jones (Lecturer of Kinesiology at UW-Eau Claire – Barron County) and I started off the course development by looking at what he wanted to do, where EDI was present in the course already, and where there were opportunities for improvement. One area Chris identified early on was the list of resources provided to students for a semester-long project in the course, the Self-Growth Book Review. Early in the semester, students are given a list of books and are asked to select one related to wellness to read for the assignment. Chris identified that the books on the list were narrow in focus and perspective. Most of the books were written by professional coaches and focused on sports, which wasn’t representative of the professional interests or experiences of students in the Collaborative AAS program. This became the action plan for the semester: to create a more inclusive list of books for students to choose from. We worked with a campus librarian to identify books available to students throughout the program’s partner campuses that would provide diverse voices, perspectives, and lived experiences related to the topic of self-growth.

Along with updating the list of books, we updated the design and layout of the assignment page. The books were organized thematically, annotations for each book were provided, and callouts were added to highlight which of the nine dimensions of wellness each book related to. So not only were the books more diverse in perspectives, but those perspectives were the categories by which the books were organized, making it easy for students to find the books that they were most interested in.

The amount of time it took to make this update was low, and now students have a list of books that represent a more diverse range of voices, lived experiences, and perspectives.

Screenshots of Self-Growth Book Review instructions page on Canvas. Book titles are organized by the perspectives they take on wellness and growth.

Image 1: Screenshots of Self-Growth Book Review instructions page on Canvas. Book titles are organized by the perspectives they take on wellness and growth.

Using the EDI Reflection Document

The reflection document was created to be easy to use for instructors and instructional designers. There are just three steps. Step 1 is to identify the strengths relative to EDI in your current course. The document lists many components of a course and how EDI can be incorporated into each. Step 2 is to identify the opportunities for making the course more equitable and including more diverse perspectives on the subject matter. Step 3 is to identify one of the opportunities from Step 2 and create an action plan for making that course component (and the rest of your course as a result) stronger.

When it comes to incorporating EDI into courses, the most important step is to pick a place and get started. Your instructional designer is here as a resource to help! Make it your new year’s resolution this year to make your course more equitable, diverse, and inclusive.

Four Strategies to Implement Retrieval Practice in Online Courses

Introduction 

In May 2022, Flower Darby was the keynote speaker of the annual Collaborative Faculty Symposium for UW Extended Campus faculty and instructional designers. She spoke about her book Small Teaching Online, which documents ways that instructors can implement small changes to their courses to make big impacts on student outcomes. One important strategy was retrieval practice.  

Retrieval practice is the process of asking students to “retrieve” information from their memory, the repeated act of which strengthens the process of retrieval and improves the recall of that information. For learning that requires memorization and recall (ex. Spanish conjugations, trigonometric values, domain-specific definitions, etc.), retrieval practice is a powerful tool to help students retain information (Roediger & Butler, 2011). Spacing out the instances of retrieval of the information improves the effects (Hopkins et al., 2016; Gurung & Burns, 2018). 

Four Strategies to Implement Retrieval Practice in Online Courses

Retrieval practice can be implemented in an online course in several ways, but it might look different than in face-to-face courses. In traditional course formats, instructors can rely on regularly scheduled meeting times to implement practices at the beginning or end of each meeting. They can also ask students to speak to a peer nearby. Online courses can’t rely on those aspects, so retrieval practice will look different.

1. Knowledge Checks

Rather than asking students to recall previous course content at the beginning or end of a class meeting, instructors can prompt students to recall information at the beginning or end of a module. For instance, at the top of a page in a learning management system (LMS), like Canvas, instructors can ask students several questions about previous content and provide hidden sample answers that students can reveal to compare their answers with the provided answers. 

A callout in a webpage titled "Reflection Check" with 3 reflection questions and sample answers.
Image 1: This course asks students to recall information about the foundations of the US government at the beginning of the next module. Students can click “Show sample response” to see the instructor’s provided answers.

2. Quizzes

In quizzes already used in the course, instructors can include a few questions from previous courses as retrieval practice. No more than around 25% of the quiz should come from past modules, though. In addition, the quizzes themselves can be spaced out throughout a module, rather than clustered at the end, to specifically design spaced retrieval practice in the course.

3. Reflective Activities

Ongoing reflective activities have a variety of benefits for a course, one of which is opportunities for retrieval practice. Prompts for the reflections can require students to use specific content from past modules, such as to connect it to the most recent content. The reflections don’t necessarily have to be written either! Students could record their thoughts in audio or visual formats, too.

4. Flashcards

Flashcards are a classic method of retrieval practice, and if structured well, of spaced retrieval practice, too. Many online tools for creating flashcards can be easily embedded on a Canvas page. Quizlet, for example, provides not just traditional flashcards for vocabulary terms, but also games that can prompt students to retrieve information over and over to improve their recall. 

Flashcards from Quizlet showing one vocabulary term ("essential fat") and directions how to use the flashcards.
Image 2: This course uses flashcards embedded on the Canvas page for students to practice important vocabulary terms.

In Summary 

For information that students should be able to recall quickly, such as definitions or vocabulary terms, retrieval practice is an effective, evidence-based practice to teach students that information. Retrieval practice may look different in online courses than in face-to-face courses. Incorporating past content into knowledge checks, quizzes, reflective activities, and flashcards are four ways to prompt students to continually recall important information, which improves their long-term memory of it. 

References 

Gurung, R. A. R., & Burns, K. (2018). Putting evidence-based claims to the test: A multi-site classroom study of retrieval practice and spaced practice. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 33(5), 732-742. https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.3507.  

Hopkins, R. F., Lyle, K. B., Hieb, J. L., & Ralston, P. A. S. (2016). Spaced retrieval practice increases college students’ short- and long-term retention of mathematics knowledge. Educational Psychology Review, 28, 853-873. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-015-9349-8.  

Roediger, H. L., & Butler, A. C. (2011). The critical role of retrieval practice in long-term retention. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 15(1), 20-27. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2010.09.003. 

Step Up Your Students’ Motivation Using Instant Feedback

It can be difficult knowing how to increase student motivation in your online course. But online learning has a ton of ways to raise engagement and students’ motivation! This article focuses on the ways that providing kinds of instant feedback can ensure your students are getting the resources and comments they need at the moment they need them.

How to Use This Article

Use the following article in the way best suited for your needs:

  • Read just Step 1 if you want the most important information and a simple example. This is for faculty who just want the abstract or are looking for an easy way to improve their instruction.
  • Also read Step 2 if you want to implement more advanced instant feedback on an assignment. This is for faculty who want to improve their quality of feedback and want more than the basics.
  • Continue to Step 3 if you want to learn more about using instant feedback throughout your course, beyond just quizzes. This is for faculty who are open to changing different parts of their course. Your instructional designer can help you implement instant feedback in many parts of your course!

Step 1: Introduction to Instant Feedback

Timely feedback for students is integral to effective learning and students’ satisfaction with their learning experiences (Espasa & Meneses, 2010). Providing that feedback, however, can be more difficult in online classes. Although your lack of physical proximity to your students can be challenging, your feedback remains essential. It can be a powerful tool for motivating students through online courses, especially instant feedback (Bridge, Appleyard, & Wilson, 2007).

Instant feedback could include praise for excellent work, corrections of mistakes, or helping a student assess the quality of their work and assess the pace of their learning.

Instant feedback provides several benefits for students:

  • Mistakes and misconceptions can be immediately corrected.
  • Correct knowledge and skill application can be positively reinforced.
  • Corrective feedback can be personal, which avoids embarrassing students.
  • Students gain more self-awareness of strengths and gaps in knowledge or skill sets.
  • Instant feedback can increase the amount of time a student is engaged in the course.

Two Types of Instant Feedback

In an online course, students can benefit from two kinds of instant feedback: instructor comments and norm-referenced feedback. Norm-referenced feedback is feedback students get by comparing their work or progress to other examples or standards, often created by the instructor. For instance, giving students an example of an exceptional essay to help them with their essay is providing norm-referenced feedback. Both instructor comments and norm-referenced feedback are common in coursework, though the latter form may not be immediately recognized as instant feedback.

Instructor Comments

You can provide automatically generated written comments in response to specific answers or behaviors provided by students. For instance, when students choose an incorrect answer on a quiz, you can set up an automatic comment to provide the student with the necessary resources to fix their mistake the next time they need that knowledge (for example, in an assignment or exam).

Norm-Referenced Feedback

Students don’t just receive instant information from their instructors in the form of comments in response to answers. If you provide your students with norms for the class, such as deadlines, suggested timelines, and models of good work (and examples of poor work), they can compare their work and learning progression with those norms. They can instantly recognize when they are falling behind, need to improve their answers, or need to complete specific, upcoming work, all as soon as they need it.

Example of Instant Feedback in Canvas

In this political science course, the instructor set up a Canvas quiz to automatically provide feedback based on a student’s answer. In the first image, the correct answer provides positive feedback.

An example of positive feedback automatically appears when the correct answer is selected in a quiz.
Image 1: Positive feedback for the correct answer.

In the second image, an incorrect answer provides instant feedback as well, explaining the likely misconception that would lead a student to choose that answer.

An example of constructive feedback automatically appears when the incorrect answer is selected in a quiz.
Image 2: Constructive feedback for the incorrect answer.

Step 2: More Advanced Instant Feedback

Thanks for striving to improve your feedback! While any helpful feedback is better than no feedback (Espasa & Meneses, 2010), there are ways to improve its quality and effectiveness. The third and fourth images below show more detailed feedback for both correct and incorrect answers, demonstrating the characteristics of effective feedback.

Read more »

Step Up Your Students’ Motivation Using Personalized Feedback

It can be difficult knowing how to increase student motivation in your online course. But online learning has a ton of ways to raise engagement and students’ motivation! This article focuses on the ways that providing kinds of personalized feedback can ensure your students are getting the resources and comments that best address their needs.

How to Use This Article

Use the following article in the way best suited for your needs:

  • Read Step 1 if you want the most important information and a simple example. This is for faculty who just want the abstract or are looking for an easy way to improve their instruction.
  • Also read Step 2 if you want to implement more advanced personalized feedback. This is for faculty who want to improve their quality of feedback and want more than the basics.
  • Continue to Step 3 if you want to learn more about using personalized feedback throughout your course, beyond just assignments. This is for faculty who are open to changing different parts of their course. Your instructional designer can help you incorporate personalized feedback into your course!

Step 1: Introduction to Personalized Feedback

Personalized feedback is not new. Grades and comments from instructors are foundational in any course. But effective feedback should be more personalized than a letter grade or a simple “Nice job!” or “Try again!” Providing adaptive and personalized feedback can help students perform better in the course, become more self-regulated learners, and stay motivated to complete the coursework (Maier & Klotz, 2022). Plus, students prefer personalized feedback over general comments (Cramp, 2011), and it motivates them to put more effort into a course.

Teaching a large survey course, an asynchronous online course, or both limits how realistic it is to provide personalized feedback to all learners on all learning tasks (Planar & Moya, 2016). Still, feedback is crucial for helping students learn, improve their capabilities, and become effective practitioners in their fields. Furthermore, offering timely feedback can be a challenge too, but it is critical for the learning process that feedback comes just in time for students to practice and improve their skills.

The Best Feedback Is Formative

Feedback is most effective when it comes during the learning process rather than at the end (this is the difference between formative and summative assessments). Giving timely and constructive feedback helps learners improve their knowledge and skills while practicing them before they are assessed for a summative grade. Consider having students submit drafts of their work so you can reinforce strong skills or correct misconceptions early. Another advantage of formative feedback is that there is no grade attached. Detailed feedback tends to be skipped when a summative grade is provided as well (Underwood, 2008).

One important characteristic of strong formative feedback is its actionability. Students should be able to take feedback and immediately know how to use it to improve their work. Reference the criteria for success for the assignment or the overall learning goals of the course when giving specific, actionable feedback as well.

Finally, provide a method for students to engage with the feedback. Develop a way for students to ask follow-up questions based on the comments and suggestions for improvement. Students’ reactions can also inform the instructor on the best ways to provide feedback, especially critical or constructive comments, moving forward. Try offering to meet to discuss the feedback during office hours that week, or even include a link for students to schedule an appointment with you directly in the feedback you provide.

An Example of Personalized Feedback

The most common form of personalized feedback in Canvas is probably the SpeedGrader comment. While using SpeedGrader, instructors have access to a comment box where they can provide praise for excellent work and suggestions for revisions or edits to improve their work. There, instructors can provide summaries of their feedback, explanations of their overall grades, or links to resources. The image below shows an example of a comment on a draft of a research paper. The comment helps the student identify their strengths and their weaknesses in a succinct manner. Ideally, the comment is paired with more in-depth comments within the paper itself.

A screenshot of a comment in which the faculty praises and offers specific constructive feedback.
Image 1: Personalized feedback provided as a SpeedGrader Comment.

Step 2: More Advanced Personalized Feedback

Personalizing suggestions for improvement and praise for student work sounds easy enough, but a serious gap between students’ expectations for feedback and what instructors give is unfortunately common. Carless (2006) identified a discrepancy between the students’ and instructors’ perceptions of how detailed feedback is. Instructors tend to overestimate how detailed and useful their comments are compared to how their students perceive those same comments. One cause of the discrepancy is that students often don’t understand the feedback because they can’t decipher how to use it to improve their work (Planar & Moya, 2016). The feedback coming too late to be useful for students’ learning is another problem (McConlogue, 2020).

In order to be effective, feedback should address multiple components of the learning task and process (Hattie & Timperley, 2007). When providing high-quality personalized feedback, consider the following five areas:

The task: What is the student doing or producing?

Different disciplines require different types of feedback. Is the student’s work authentic and realistic to the field of study? If proficiency in a particular skill (e.g., MS Excel calculations or pronouncing words such as in the image below) is important, the feedback should focus on correcting errors or misconceptions that could lead to errors. In the example below, the instructor could record themselves correcting a mispronunciation. On the other hand, more abstract thinking requires feedback to focus on concepts like organization and sequencing of thoughts and the connections between ideas.

A screenshot of a quiz question asking students to record themselves saying many French words.
Image 2: Faculty can record themselves demonstrating a skill in which a student is deficient, such a pronouncing a word in French.

In addition, the feedback should help students produce authentic artifacts of learning or act like a practitioner in the field. Instructors often do such when teaching citation styles, but feedback could also include information on how to effectively present information in a meeting, use appropriate scientific notation in a lab journal, or write a methods section in an ethnographic study.

The processes: Does the student think and work like a practitioner? How is the student evaluated?

When preparing a presentation at a business meeting, conducting a scientific experiment, or participating in an ethnographic study, are students doing so in the most effective, authentic way? Feedback throughout the processes of learning can help correct procedural errors or misconceptions in a student’s way of thinking.

Further, are students practicing the skills or using the knowledge they need for their assessments? Feedback can help identify the ways students can improve their work to better align with the criteria for success outlined in the course.

Self-regulation: How well does the student plan, set goals, seek help, manage time, etc.?

Feedback can be a powerful tool for helping students reflect on their self-regulation skills. If the quality of their work suffers as a result of poor time management or a lack of planning out their work, students can find feedback helpful in that regard as well. Suggest ways that students can utilize tools (ideally ones that would be accessible or even expected in the field) to perform more effectively. Improving self-regulation is a great benefit of personalized feedback (Wang & Lehman, 2021; Maier & Klotz, 2022). Student motivation and engagement also benefit from more robust self-regulation skills (Planar & Moya, 2016).

The student: How well does the instructor know the student?

Knowing the student (their goals, career aspirations, prior experiences, content knowledge, etc.) is helpful for personalizing feedback. The example pictured below shows instructions for an introductory discussion post in which students describe themselves, including their current careers or career goals. The instructor can then use that initial discussion board to reference this information about students when providing feedback relevant to their careers. It can be greatly motivating for students to revise and improve their work when they see the benefit to their goals or future, or when they feel the instructor is invested in their success.

A discussion board instructing students to provide their name, career goals, and hobbies.
Image 3: Faculty can use introductory discussion boards to curate important information from their students to use in their feedback when appropriate.

The relationship: How does the instructor work with the students?

The way instructors understand their role in the learning process affects the quality and the results of the feedback they give. Students are not motivated by feedback from instructors with an authoritative, controlling presence in the course (McConlogue, 2020). A relationship built on mentorship provides more motivating feedback, whether it’s praise or constructive criticism.

Personalized feedback also greatly benefits students from underrepresented or marginalized groups, especially during their first year in college (Espinoza & Genna, 2021). Having a positive relationship with faculty is a great motivator for students who cannot rely on family or friends to help them navigate the (often unspoken) norms of higher education. In these instances, personalized feedback from instructors is even more important.

Step 3: Personalized Feedback Beyond a SpeedGrader Comment

Thank you for investing in improving the quality of your feedback! By reading this section, you will be well positioned to provide high-quality personalized feedback, even beyond the comment box of SpeedGrader. There are many ways you can offer positive and constructive comments throughout your course.

Audio and Visual Feedback

The written word just doesn’t provide as much information as quickly as the spoken word. A video can convey tone, body language, and facial expressions while the instructor is speaking. In addition, feedback is best delivered in a similar cadence as the student’s work, so a video or audio clip could be more appropriate than a written comment, such as for a foreign language or art course. You might find that students respond more to video recordings of your comments than typed ones, and the video comments might be faster than typing them, anyway!

Canvas SpeedGrader allows you to upload audiovisual files into the grading interface. In 2022, Canvas also integrated the use of emoji into the comment box, which could be an easy way to visually share your tone without recording an audiovisual file.

Performance Recording Comments and Suggestions

Beyond recording a video of your comments, you might upload a video of you providing feedback on a student-uploaded video! For instance, if you were the instructor of a course on public speaking, you might record yourself with the student’s recorded speech, pausing their recording to offer praise and suggestions for improvement. A computer science instructor might have a student who is having trouble with some software record their screen when they encounter the problem, then the instructor can record a video on how to fix that problem!

Product Comments, Edits, Revisions, and Annotations

Within Canvas, instructors are not limited to the comment box within SpeedGrader. When students submit documents or files, instructors can download them and offer comments, edits, revisions, and annotations within that file (e.g., a Microsoft Word document or a Google Spreadsheet). Then, the instructor can re-upload the annotated and revised version of the student’s work to SpeedGrader for the student to review.

Email Check-Ins

Whether scheduled or only on an as-needed basis, reaching out to students through email is a great opportunity not only to develop a strong relationship with them but also to provide them with personalized feedback. Instructors can offer praise or suggestions for improvement based on recent student submissions or reach out with advice or their own experiences to connect with students and motivate them further.

Announcements

While not everyone loves this, many people appreciate a public shout-out for good work! Instructors can use the Announcements feature in Canvas to highlight great work, strong effort, and effective collaboration (or any other positive behavior the instructor wants to see in their course). A weekly announcement that instructors post to improve their presence in the class, connect materials to current events, and/or provide important time-sensitive information can also add a “Student Shout-Out” section. It might be worthwhile to reach out to the student beforehand to get their permission to give them the shout-out, as sometimes public praise can be demotivating for people.

“Message Students Who…”

Canvas makes it easy for instructors to reach out to students according to certain criteria, such as those who earned a specific grade, haven’t yet started an assignment, or had the assignment reassigned to them for revisions. Canvas will dynamically change the address list, but you have to supply the email subject line and body of the message. The message itself is where you can include feedback specific to each group of students. For example, in the image below, the instructor is messaging all the students who have not yet turned in their assignment, including reminders of their office hours and how students can contact them with questions or concerns they have in the email.

A screenshot of an email to students who haven't completed an assignment reminding them to turn it in.
Image 4: Instructors can target messages to specific students to provide more personalized feedback than a course-wide email.

Discussion Boards

Designing an effective discussion board assignment involves more work than just requiring a post and a comment (Berry, 2022). A strong discussion board assignment can facilitate the opportunity for students to provide personalized feedback to each other! If they know the criteria for success and appropriate norms for providing constructive criticism, a peer’s feedback can be a powerful tool for improvement.

Peer Review

Students themselves can provide important feedback to each other, not only in written comments but also through comparisons between work and norms established by the instructor. Students who review a peer’s work not only assess their peer’s submission against the instructor-provided rubric but also compare their peer’s work against their own. Further, by using the rubric as an instructor might, students are getting important perspectives on how rubrics can guide their work. This kind of feedback is especially useful for students, as they often don’t take the perspective of the instructor very often. Finally, the actual written comments students provide each other can be useful, as they can include perspectives or feedback the instructor might not.

Contribute to This Article

If you have a great example of any of the forms of personalized feedback, we would love to share it with our instructors to help make each course at UW Extended Campus as excellent as possible!

In addition, let us know if you use a way of sharing personalized feedback not mentioned in this article. It could be the next innovative spark to help someone else level up their students’ motivation.

Email Brian Chervitz at brian.chervitz@uwex.wisconsin.edu with your ideas.

References

Berry, L. (2022, July 15). A framework for increasing critical thinking, student engagement, and knowledge construction in online discussion. IDigest. https://ce.uwex.edu/a-framework-for-increasing-critical-thinking-student-engagement-and-knowledge-construction-in-online-discussions/

Carless, D. (2006). Differing perceptions in the feedback process. Studies in Higher Education, 31(2), 219–233. http://doi.org/10.1080/03075070600572132.

Cramp, A. (2011). Developing first-year engagement with written feedback. Active Learning in Higher Education, 12, 113–124.

Hattie, J., & Timperley, H. (2007). The power of feedback. Review of Educational Research, 77(1), 81-112.  http://doi.org/10.3102/003465430298487.

Maier, U., & Klotz, C. (2022). Personalized feedback in digital learning environments: Classification framework and literature review. Computer and Education: Artificial Intelligence, 3. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.caeai.2022.100080.

McConlogue, T. (2020). Assessment and feedback in higher education: A guide for teachers. UCL Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv13xprqb.2.

Merry, S., & Orsmond, P. (2008). Students’ attitudes to and usage of academic feedback provided via audio files. Bioscience Education, 11.

Planar, D. & Moya, S. (2016). The effectiveness of instructor personalized and formative feedback provided by instructor in an online setting: Some unresolved issues. The Electronic Journal of e-Learning, 14(3), 196-203.

Underwood, J. S., & Tregidgo, A. P. (2008). Improving student writing through effective feedback: Best practices and recommendations. Journal of Teaching Writing, 22(2), 73-97.