Providing Learner-Centered Feedback Using D2L - A 2014 UO Conference Presentation

Post author: Cobern Whitehead

Providing feedback regarding a student’s learning is a crucial part of the learning process and is something that, as instructors, we need to do on a constant basis.  In the traditional style classroom setting where I spend most of my time, I am able to do for my students via a combination of verbal feedback in the classroom and written feedback on their assignments.  When introducing D2L to one of this semester’s evening classes, I quickly realized that the way I provide feedback needs to be modified.  For this reason, I found Jainping Cui and Marilyn Letts’s UO conference presentation to be particularly useful.

Jianping and Marilyn’s presentation begins with a quick review of the essentials of providing feedback – namely that feedback must be timely, ongoing and positive and actionable – and then moves on to cover some of the feedback and assessment tools that are built in to D2L.  I’ll admit that I sometimes tend to view online learning simply as an updated version of traditional long-distance learning, and I was pleased to be shown differently when the presenters focused largely on ways to provide instantaneous feedback in D2L – something that I’ve always thought to be missing from non-FTF learning environments.  I look forward to putting their tips on D2L’s discussion , dropbox, quiz, self-assessment and grader tools to use and providing my students with improved feedback.

To learn more about providing feedback on D2L, please watch Jianping and Marilyn’s UO Conference session.