Natalia Yevgenyevna Collings, Central Michigan University presented on “Effective feedback: Building a community of learners” as part of the Lilly Conference online 2021. Collings is in the Department of Teacher Education and Professional Development and mentioned teaching undergraduates and graduate students. Collings spoke about teaching for fifteen years and being very interested in feedback, mentioning that:
Feedback woks best when it is… anchored in course design, culture, standards, and objectives; guided by meaningful criteria developed based on relevant literature and learner input; multi-directional (instructor, learners, peers) and requested; actionable; semi-structured.
Natalia Yevgenyevna Collings, Lilly Conference Online 2021
Collings also explained how feedback tools are an “integral part of class culture based on trust and respect, as reflected in universal design criteria” stating principle 3 for simple and intuitive use and principle 5 tolerance for error. I had not thought about this comparison! Collings also talked about using templates that encourage creativity and choice that contribute to learning. One comment about transparency was to share with learners that if there is something not in the guidelines or rubric that the instructor identifies, the learner will not be penalized.
Anchored in course objectives/standards was the next point that Collings described. This is part of backward design and aligns with guidance from meaningful criteria. Students also contribute to a GoogleDoc to common guidelines and criteria. Collings spoke about the importance of multi-directional and requested feedback by creating a culture in the course that promotes reflection, asking for feedback from instructor, and providing feedback to peers and instructor. I had never heard of a prompt to request feedback from peers! That is an awesome idea that can be implemented, I think, online. Collings encouraged instructors to prompt learners to provide feedback to instructors and let learners experience how their input is valued. For peer feedback, Collings recommended encouraging collegiality and a community of learners. Feedback must be actionable, according to Collings, and one way they suggest is to reflect on peer feedback and change one thing/item based on feedback. Collings mentions semi-structured feedback and to inspire by examples. Several tools for organizing feedback were described to provide structure and allow learner choice. Collings stated on a slide that “feedback also helps: set higher expectations for both learners and the instructor’s performance” helping teacher regulate their behavior. Feedback also helps build a community of scholars, and Collings emphasized this and how feedback helps “master the concepts emphasized in class by seeing them approached from other perspectives.”
