Teaching Hub

Feedback in Online Courses

by Alecia Chatham, Department of Modern Languages and Classics

3I9A5380Personalized feedback is the best feedback a student can receive. It is the closest to one-on-one teaching possible online short of using Skype! Feedback should always be given either way, personalized or generic. And, if it is generic (i.e., not tailored to an individual student),  it should still be specific.

Positive feedback for a excellent job should be mostly generic with occasional personalizations to help the student keep momentum. Feedback that corrects should point out both the positive and negative aspects of material turned in as well as make finding and providing correct answers extremely clear. This may mean page numbers with examples or written out examples, but it should certainly leave no doubt about how to answer a question(s) correctly.

Feedback for written responses provided for essay, short answer or discussion questions should be personalized and detailed to match the effort put forth in a response.