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The upshot? |
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Students… |
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- get rich, written feedback that is timely specific and developmental
- receive feedback in electronic form that they can refer to later
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Faculty … |
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- can give better feedback, while controlling academic & pedagogical decisions
- get diagnostic information ¾ by student learning outcome (SLO)
- have more time to enhance their teaching and improve their courses
- at research institutions, conduct more research, write grant proposals etc.
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Administrators ... |
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- see improved student success, retention and persistence
- get data on institutional student-learning outcomes (accreditation-reports)
- save on overall instructional cost (below)
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| Assess+ |
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Accessible. |
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Accurate. |
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Actionable. |
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| Today, there is near-complete consensus on the need to improve educational outcomes in our universities and colleges. As
instructors and administrators alike look for the root causes of deteriorating student achievement, one factor stands out: the need for more student engagement. Improving student engagement is a broad objective, resulting from doing
a number of things well. |
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| The case for rich feedback |
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| One area crying out for attention is the extent of feedback students receive on their ongoing written assignments. Almost universally, assignments come back with a score or letter-grade and a few scrawls that are too brief, general, vague and or otherwise too minimal to make a difference. The student is left with little guidance on what to do differently. When limited to listening to lectures and reading textbooks, the student develops an understanding of the material, but only a superficial one. Deep insights are possible only when the student is required to apply that preliminary understanding to a problem in the form of an assignment. A good assignment is one that adequately requires the student to apply concepts as well as stretch their basic understanding to solving problems (e.g., calculus sums, designing bridges or developing organizational interventions). However, in the absence of timely, rich and actionable feedback, an important, reinforcing loop in the learning process remains incomplete.
Adapted from the work of Chris
Argyris as cited in Smith (2001) |
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| Why rich feedback is virtually absent today? |
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| There are numerous reasons for why students don't receive adequate feedback on a timely basis; in the end, our research points to the lack of support. Except for faculty members at research-intensive institutions, the vast majority of instructors in four- and two-year institutions simply do not have the kind of academic support
needed to provide students with adequate feedback. Our analysis further shows that much of the deterioration in the quality of our graduates,
decried by employers and graduate-admissions officers alike, can be traced to the lack of individualized attention to students. The syndrome is not limited to research schools, where
the publish-or-perish milieu relegates teaching to a distant second position. Even within so-called teaching-intensive institutions, higher workloads and larger classes prevent faculty from providing students with the kind of feedback needed for deeper learning. To us, therefore, there is a direct
relationship between the de-personalization of instruction and deterioration
of learning (knowledge, competencies and skills). As the spotlight on student learning-outcomes intensifies
‒ and demands on faculty rise
‒ institutions will need to step up academic support. |
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EduMetry assists faculty with the most effort-intensive aspects of assessment. Our TAs, who have PhDs or Masters degrees in a wide range of disciplines,
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- electronically insert detailed, actionable feedback into
student assignments
- pin-point strengths and shortcomings in student work in a constructive tone
- color-code the feedback based on student learning outcomes (SLOs),
provided to us by the instructor
- use rubrics provided by the instructor or that we design for her/
his sign-off
- score the assignments on each SLO using the rubrics provided/ developed
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send instructor a report summarizing class performance on the
assignment
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Perspective! |
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At a time when high-skill professionals in other walks of life are specializing in what they do best, leaving others to do the rest, isn't it odd that we in academia hold on to the 19th-century model of the craftsman! Doctors rely on medical technologists and nurses, while lawyers rely on paralegals. Specialization is at times seen in pejorative terms, as somehow demeaning. Yet, specialization is not just about division of labor and efficiency, but also about developing the critical-mass of expertise needed to trigger innovation. Viewed in this light, specialization based on one's training and specialized expertise are necessary for human progress. Specialization helps us not only tackle complexity, but thrive on it, too! |
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