Having written my assignment, I was to submit it to a fellow Associate Lecturer/student on the e(LATE)D module for feedback. Contrary to the gentle supportive reminders on the Study Calendar that, like our students, we may feel anxious about getting feedback, I was very keen to have some dialogue about what I was writing. It can be easy to start feeling like a tutor on a desert island when you teach mostly online. It was pleasant to hear back about my work instead of just putting wise words out on other people's work, like messages in bottles.
(Pictured above, a dessert island: Îles Flottantes)
I got good advice from my peer commentator, although she took a more formal approach and I suspect may have been a bit guarded in what she said.
The person whose assignment I was to feed back on had not contacted me, so I was gleefully thinking I'd get to skip that part of the workload. However luckily in the Online Tutorial another student said she had not managed yet to get feedback and I leapt in to offer to do it for her.
Having to do this was very helpful. In order to give a professional level of feedback, I had to closely read the Learning Outcomes for the assignment. When I read them in order to write my assignment, I'm afraid I skipped quickly through them just skimming them sufficiently to get the general idea! I was under a lot of pressure and running about a week late (you are only supposed to have five days' extension).
That was a lesson to me in how students approach their work! since I had always naively assumed they at least read the assignment instructions carefully several times. I did used to get a bit puzzled by some of the elementary errors I would spot and wonder which set of instructions they were following
So now I am poised to re-write my assignment, with my peer commentator's feedback and a clear idea of the Learning Outcomes, LOL. It has been most helpful to read someone-else's assignment and see how they approached it. I have looked at others posted on the Forum too.
I've found it helpful writing this blog, as there were some things I covered in my write-up which I can now feel I have written about more appropriately elsewhere (such as the mind mapping planning stage of the work). I felt I ought to include them, to show I had done the legwork for the assignment - like mathematicians writing out the whole equation not just the answer. However I would rather write a clean account of the e-tivity I am attempting to develop.