Practice and Feedback Are Essential

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We all know that practice and feedback are essential for learning. Unfortunately, providing sufficient practice and feedback to students takes time — both on the part of students and faculty. By utilizing online tools, faculty can be more efficient in designing practice opportunities and giving feedback.

 

Key Points

• Goal-directed practice coupled with targeted feedback is critical to learning

• Feedback is meant to keep learners’ practice moving forward and toward improvement

• Feedback must be targeted to learning goals, timely, and frequent

• Feedback should assist students’ efforts in focusing on what they need to learn rather than what they already know

 

Performance Goals

• Instructor instruction becomes more efficient and focused when performance goals are set

• This is an important result when considering most faculty face time constraints in the courses they teach

 

Rubrics for Feedback

• Research shows that rubrics save professors’ time while conveying meaningful and timely feedback for students, and promoting self-regulated and independent learning.

• Having little exposure to rubrics in LMS systems, faculty members in higher education tend to use it less than K12 teachers.

• Blackboard LMS, in particular, offers a very streamlined tool to create and grade on a rubric scale. If you would like to learn more about creating a rubric in Blackboard you can use this Helplink:  Blackboard Rubrics Helplink

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SAMPLES

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Explore the sites below to better understand how to save time and give more meaningful feedback.

 

Sample Rubrics

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http://www.introductiontorubrics.com/samples.html

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Rubric Frameworks

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http://www.introductiontorubrics.com/frameworks.html

 

 

References:

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Ambrose, S., Bridges, M., DiPietro, M., Lovett, M., & Norman, M. (2010). What Kinds of Practice and Feedback Enhance Learning? In How Learning Works: Seven Research-Based Principles for Smart Teaching. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

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Introduction Rubrics: An Assessment Tool to Save Grading Time, Convey Effective Feedback and Promote Student Learning by Dannelle D. Stevens and Antonia J. Levi (Introduction Rubrics: An Assessment Tool to Save Grading Time, Convey Effective Feedback and Promote Student Learning by Dannelle D. Stevens and Antonia J. Levi)http://www.introductiontorubrics.com/overview.html

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Karim, A. A. (2011), Book Review: How Learning Works: 7 Research-based Principles for Smart Teaching by Susan A. Ambrose, Michael W. Bridges, Michele DiPietro, Marsha C. Lovett, Marie K. Norman, and Richard E. Mayer. Journal of Food Science Education, 10: 27–29. doi: 10.1111/j.1541-4329.2011.00127.x