Final results for many of the courses I teach have just been released. Some students have given feedback on the courses, which I think is useful for me and the designers of the courses as it indicates what students think has been particularly pertinent for their needs.
The comments are probably quite altruistic but I think they can improve the effectiveness of my future support for students on future courses.
For the L185 course, there are occasional OU Live chats amongst the tutors and course chairs (called "watercooler meetings") to discuss issues of concern and interest. We had one last night and one of the issues was feedback and whether students read them effectively.
I have the impression that students who are successful tend to read the feedback quite carefully but those whose marks are lower may not read them so carefully (if at all). It is difficult to disentangle cause and effects here as perhaps students produce stronger assignments if they read feedback or perhaps those getting good marks are keener to revel in the praise.
I am thinking of how to persuade students to read more of the feedback and act on it. Something I have tried was refer back to feedback on previous assignments to show how they have/have not improved in the aspects I mentioned. One issue is to avoid seeming tectchy if there has been little progress between assignments.
Does anyone have any thoughts?
I have had some mixed feedback on the same course. One student was so keen on my work that she named me in response to a question of who was significant for her studies and made some very generous comment.
In the anonymous feedback for the same course, I generally got good feedback but for each category, there was one who wrote negative comments. I can entirely understand that there are different opinions and students should give their honest views. However, some of the feedback is demonstrably (or could be demonstrated as) untrue - e.g. feedback that messages were not replied to. I am sure that one rogue person who seems to maliciously criticise would be ignored in the greater context but I wonder whether there should be a need to demonstrate criticisms are reasonable. I suppsoe this might affect anonymity.
I decided to use a podcast to give general feedback for students on LB160 to see if this use of the spoken mode might be effective in getting attention. So far, the response seems to be quite favourable but it is always hard to know how many people listen.
The podcast is at:
http://patrickandrews.podbean.com/2012/08/28/lb160-feedback/
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