WHERE ARE WE

In the first installment of this series, we examined a common barrier to learning whereby students may not utilize feedback provided to them by faculty. This feedback disuse can be frustrating for faculty (like our fictional “Dr. Dean” in Part 1) and prevents what should be a powerful and vital part of the learning process for students.

In the second installment, we connected the concept of “mastery-oriented feedback” to the practice of using multimedia tools to offer feedback in practice.

In this third installment, we’ll explore several tools that instructors can use to provide multimedia feedback and share some examples.

PRINCIPLES FOR PRACTICE

Using multimedia feedback is a practice that may draw from different tools, each of which has its own strengths, uses, and limitations. 

Whatever tool you use, some basic principles for feedback should be followed to ensure that the use of these tools stays grounded in the provision of “mastery-oriented feedback”: 

1. Provide feedback during the learning process (not just after).Mastery-oriented feedback values progress. Therefore, we recommend using these tools at formative stages of work. For example, have students submit the first section of a larger work, a first draft of a shorter work, etc. and use the multimedia feedback at this stage. You may then opt to use a simple rubric for the final submission.
2. Make feedback constructive and actionable: what I like, what needs work, next steps.People are more receptive to criticism after they’ve received some recognition. Look for something(s) you can comment on positively, then address that which needs more work, and finally, suggest next steps to prod that important action!
3. Choose your scope/level and stick to it.Decide on what is most important. If you spend all your time and energy focused on correcting typos and mechanical errors, commentary on the content, style, or structure may become buried. Choose what’s important and speak to that first. Then if you wish to make holistic comments about need to proofread, you can do so.

STRATEGIES & TOOLS 

There are a number of ways to provide multimedia feedback to learners. Here are a few we recommend. We’ll go into more detail about each below the table.

Anchored Audio Feedback (Audio only)

What is it?

Anchored audio feedback is a collection of audio files that are placed proximally to the content to which the feedback response (just like a traditional marginal note would be). For example, a comment about the introduction to someone’s essay may be dropped in as an audio file in Word. 

What’s good about it? 

• This type of feedback allows for specific feedback in specific places such that students can review feedback and address it systematically.
• Enables the instructor to provide targeted comments without needing to organize overall thoughts or worry about having to re-record a long feedback session if they make a mistake. 

What are the limitations? 

• This can be time consuming if there are many points of feedback and/or many students. 
• With our suggested tool, this approach is limited to things that can be converted into PDFs (documents, images…) and thus largely excludes dynamic content (movies, webpages). 

What tools can I use for this? 

Through there are other tools or approaches to providing anchored audio, we have chosen to eliminate those that are too restrictive (e.g., iAnnotate, which can only be used on Apple mobile devices) or too complex/cumbersome (e.g., using an audio recorder, then embedding the audio file in Word, etc.) or too expensive for individuals (e.g., Turnitin.com subscription). The one tool that is ubiquitous, free, and quite simple to use for this purpose is Adobe Acrobat Reader.

 

 

Screencast Feedback (Audio & Video)

What is it?

Screencast feedback captures a video of your screen as you navigate the student’s work while offering verbal (and/or visual) commentary. 

What’s good about it? 

• This is one of the most versatile of all multimedia feedback approaches. 
• Can be used with any submission type including text, images, video, websites, etc. Anything that can be shown on a computer screen.
• Offers a powerful combination of video and synchronized audio that mimics in-person conferencing with a student. 
• Many of the tools that you can use for it are free or already available on your computer. 
• Once done, the resulting video can be uploaded into Canvas SpeedGrader or shared in any other way videos can be shared.

What are the limitations? 

• Some instructors find it difficult to organize thoughts and explain things at the same time while the recording is occurring. 
• Students with some types of disabilities (e.g., visual impairments, hearing loss) may not gain full benefit from this approach. 

What tools can I use for this? 

There are many screencast applications available. They range in functionality and cost (from free to fairly expensive). Here are few we recommend: 

Tips: 

Note again how versatile screencasting is. There are many strategies instructors may wish to employ via the screencasting approach. For example, you may...

• Highlight (with a mouse or on-screen drawing tool) as you refer to things and make comments in the document.  
• Add written notes to remind the student about key comments at different points in the document. 
• Make corrections yourself as you go, explaining your logic. 
• Ask learners questions to consider at different parts of the work. 
• Ask the learner to explicitly respond to certain comments to ensure they are actually listening to and applying the feedback. …

If you are uploading the video to Canvas, consider using Canvas Studio (formerly Arc) to host the video. This allows for easy to generate captions and doesn’t count against your storage space on Canvas. 

 

Graphic Markup 

What is it?

Graphic markup includes using software on your computer (Word, Adobe Reader, Captivate, Preview, etc…) to annotate and graphically markup a document, image, sheet music or other submission. You may opt to combine this with screencast feedback by marking it up “live” while conducting a screencast or by marking it up first, then recording a screencast to offer verbal commentary to compliment the graphic markup. But screen recording isn’t required for graphic markup. 

What’s good about it? 

• Highly versatile with different types of submissions and different potential tools for marking it up. 
• Can be used with many submission types including text, images, websites, sheet music, etc. Anything static that can be digitally marked up. 
• Combines well with screencast feedback for true multimodal feedback. 
• Allows specific, targeted feedback to areas of the submitted work.
• Allows students to address feedback in step-by-step systematic fashion.

What are the limitations? 

• Depending on what you use to mark up the submission, may require that the instructor and student have access to same software.
• Students with some types of disabilities (e.g., visual impairments) may not gain full benefit from this approach. 

What tools can I use for this? 

There are a number of tools you could use for this. For our purposes, we're recommending using this strategy with PDFs and Word documents. Therefore, we recommend the following tools.

 

Holistic Feedback (Audio and/or Video)

What is it?

Holistic multimedia feedback is simply a way to provide overall commentary on a work using audio and/or video.

What’s good about it? 

• This type of feedback is broad and thematic, keeping focus on big ideas. 
• Very simple and fast for instructors to provide. 
• Our recommended method is baked right into Canvas SpeedGrader. 

What are the limitations? 

• Holistic feedback may not be sufficient for some types of student work.

What tools can I use for this? 

You could offer holistic feedback with nearly any tool including screencast, audio recorders, etc. But if you are planning to offer holistic feedback for assignments submitted in Canvas, we strongly recommend the Canvas SpeedGrader: Media comment. This makes Canvas a one-stop for viewing and commenting on student work for both the instructor and the student. 

 

Audio-Video Dialogue! 

What is it?

Audio-video dialogue is a very different approach in that brings together some of the other strategies in a new way. Like a face-to-face conference, this approach allows the instructor and student to pose questions or offer response to one another so as to negotiate understanding and deepen the quality of feedback.

What’s good about it? 

• Allows for dialogic feedback. Allows greater depth and engagement than monologic feedback.
• In form, this approach can be used to provide feedback on anything, as the feedback channel is separate from the work itself. 

What are the limitations? 

• Requires some degree of longitudinal time to allow for asynchronous discussion.
• Only appropriate for work for which there is  significant subjectivity or for which dialogue is otherwise fruitful. 

What tools can I use for this? 

 

LEARN MORE:

As always, please reach out to us [email protected] with questions, ideas, or to request workshops or support in implementing these ideas.

• UDL on Canvas (Course): Providing Multimedia Feedback- This lesson in the larger “Implementing UDL on Canvas” course provides more details and tips regarding this strategy.
• UDL on Campus: Emotion & Learning – A brief exploration into why mastery-oriented environments are so important.
• UDL Guidelines: Increase Mastery Oriented Feedback – More information, examples, and resources for this checkpoint.
• “Using screen capture feedback to improve academic performance” – a nice six-page study exploring the use of screen capture feedback in higher education.

 

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY (MASTERY SERIES): 

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