Black & William (1998) emphasised the extraordinarily large and consistent positive effects that feedback has on learning, compared with other things teachers might try and do. But what of the time poor teacher struggling to deliver effective feedback to students in time for them to feed forward to the next assignment?
Macgregor et al. (2011) found that the production of audio feedback was twice as fast as for written feedback, while Ice et al. (2007) claimed that provision of audio feedback could save time by up to 75% (also reviewed in Y1 Feedback, 2016). The description of audio feedback in Gibbs (2010 p.24) as rapid and automated also appealed to me and directed me to the ‘Sounds Good’ project conducted by team of 15 teachers in a range of disciplines exploring the use of digital audio feedback (DAF) to give feedback on students' coursework at Leeds Metropolitan University. The ‘Sounds Good’ project website and outputs were extremely valuable resources and included practical tips on using DAF (Rotheram, 2009).
In this study, DAF was piloted (as part of the TEAM project*) as a means of dealing with the assessment workload to produce rich feedback for students in time for them to feed forward. The technology allowed the feedback to be recorded at any time and in a place that was convenient for the feedback provider and not limited by the timetable and room availability. DAF allowed for the provision of detailed feedback on time and was very well received by students. The majority of students surveyed reported that they listened to the feedback multiple times, that it was easy to use and that it was convenient and time-saving for them compared to other forms of feedback. One limitation of this form of feedback is that for maximum gain it is best reviewed with the assignment open and that aspect is end-user controlled.
This presentation will explore positive and negative aspects of DAF implementation as well as the digital learner perceptions of DAF.
*The Technology Enhanced Assessment Methods (TEAM) project led by DkIT and partnering with IT Sligo, AIT and IT Carlow enabled practitioners to explore the potential offered by digital technologies to support good assessment and feedback practice.
Keywords; TEAM (Technology Enhanced Assessment Methods) digital audio feedback, assessment and feedback, technology enhanced feedback.
- Black, P. & Wiliam, D. (1998) Assessment and classroom learning, Assessment in Education, 5(1), 7–74.
- Macgregor, G., Spiers, A. and Taylor, C. (2011). Exploratory evaluation of audio email technology in formative assessment feedback. Research in Learning Technology, 19(1).
- Ice, P., Curtis, R., Phillips, P. and Wells, J. (2007). Using asynchronous audio feedback to enhance teaching presence and students’ sense of community. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 11(2), pp.3-25.
- Y1 Feedback (2016). Technology-Enabled Feedback in the First Year: A Synthesis of the Literature. Available from y1feedback.ie ISBN: 978-0-9927466-3-6
- Gibbs, G., 2010. Using assessment to support student learning. Leeds Met Press.
- Rotheram, B. (2009) Sounds Good: Quicker, better assessment using audio feedback, Leeds: Leeds Metropolitan University. Accessible at www.soundsgood.org.uk
