Overview

The provision of direct and specific feedback for assessments involving presentations in online units is difficult as there is a lack of face-to-face contact between students and teaching staff. Whilst written feedback has been utilised previously, this approach can lack context and is difficult for staff to quickly and accurate articulate feedback to students.

The cohort for this unit is spread across Australia, Europe, US and Asia.

Rationale

The intention of this project was to trial a “real-time feedback” approach for an assessment that require a presentation to be submitted for an online Masters by Coursework unit.

Intended project outcomes

• To determine the feasibility of the real-time feedback approach
• To gauge student perception of the real-time feedback approach
• to improve the quality and impact of feedback for online-only
  Master by Coursework students
• to improve the efficiency of my marking time

Approach

Students record and upload presentation

Each student created a 10 minute narrated PowerPoint, and uploaded it as an unlisted video to their personal YouTube account. They then submitted a URL to their video through TurnItIn.

Live recorded marking

The lecturer opened the student’s video in Adobe Connect with recording functionality on. The lecturer also had their webcam on, situating their stream in the top right-hand of Adobe Connect.

The lecturer then ‘live marked’ the presentation, by watching the video presentations (in real time) and pausing the recording at key points and sharing feedback about the presentation via web cam.

The following is a few snippets from an assessment feedback video:

Students receive feedback

The students then receive a link to the Adobe Connect recording via Turnitin.

Actual project outcomes

• The real-time feedback approach appears to be feasible in online units with moderate enrolments (perhaps up to 50). It is yet to be determined if the approach is scalable to larger cohorts, with multiple tutors
• Student perception and feedback was overwhelmingly positive, they appreciated the direct and personalised feedback
• Critical/negative feedback was well received, particularly when linked to improvement for later assessment tasks
• It was no more efficient than traditional methods

Lessons learned

• Using this approach to deliver feedback makes it easier for teaching staff to deliver direct and detailed feedback in a relatively time-efficient manner.
• The approach didn’t save time, compared to traditional methods of marking and giving feedback on video presentations.

Evaluation

Student feedback

Student feedback was collected from SELT comments and email/LEO correspondence. An example of the student feedback is below:

...David’s approach to student feedback has been the best I've experienced across my entire student career … (SELT)

...Interactive feedback of journal article review was outstanding and should be adopted by more lecturers ...(SELT)

“…this is the most beneficial and transparent feedback I've received in my 5 years at uni (LEO correspondence)

Faculty unit comparison

Question: ‘I received timely and useful feedback on my work’ (Maximum score 5)

Awards

David was part of a team that was awarded the Vice Chancellor Postgraduate Teaching Excellence Award 2016 for the Master of High Performance Sport Degree, along with Justin Kemp and Stuart Cormack. EXSC651 and the live marking approach was referred to in the application.

Ideas for the future

• Could this feedback approach be used for other assessment types?
• Can the approach be upscaled for larger cohorts?
• Would multiple tutors be comfortable and consistent using the approach?