Title: Using Digital and Audio Annotations to Reinvent Critical Feedback with Online Adult Students
Abstract: The majority of undergraduate students attending online classes at the university level are adults from diverse cultural and educational backgrounds. Often, they have limited writing experience-a situation that creates difficulties for them and for their instructors. Providing feedback to address grammar and mechanics is relatively easy, but handling issues related to the content of students' work is more challenging. The authors discuss their use of a combination of technological feedback systems that offer an opportunity for these students to develop writing proficiency.Teaching English can be stressful, and teaching English in an online environment is truly a challenge. In online English classes that we teach at the University of Phoenix, adult students sign in with a myriad of writing concerns. With a tight schedule of only 35 days in a typical semester, English instructors have to help students improve their writing skills by providing feedback that is immediate and specific. To address this issue, we used a number of approaches in the online environment and found a combination of written and oral feedback worked well for our students. Specifically, we reinvented the feedback method, combining digital and audio annotations to provide rich and significant feedback to adult writers in our online classes.BackgroundIn the virtual classroom at the University of Phoenix, most students are culturally and linguistically diverse middle-aged adults with intermittent or no college experience and jobs that do not afford them many opportunities to practice writing. In 5 weeks, students in beginning English classes write several papers ranging from 750 to 1,400 words. Students have access to WritePointsm, an automated essay-scoring system (University of Phoenix, 2013). To use the software, students submit their papers electronically through the institution's Center for Writing Excellence and receive feedback on the grammar and mechanics of their work. In addition, instructors can download the system and use it through Microsoft Word to insert comments directly into students' papers.Introduced in 1966, automated essay-scoring systems provide immediate feedback on students' papers by inserting comments on grammar, usage, and mechanics (Rudner & Gagne, 2012). Although the automated essay-scoring systems provide feedback quickly, some of the comments are inconsistent with APA 6th Edition formatting. Instructors have to edit the automated comments and insert additional comments about errors that the automated system overlooked. Some students receive more feedback on their papers than they write. McCurry (2010) and Dikii (2010) discovered that automated feedback is often complicated, redundant, and lengthy. Another concern is that the feedback weighs heavily on grammar and mechanics, not content. Finally, automated feedback does not help most students improve their writing (Dikii).Additionally, to respond to the automated comments effectively, students need an understanding of grammar and mechanics. Many adult students in our classes do not know how to use the automated comments to improve their writing, and they continue to repeat errors. Adult writers need and want feedback that helps them improve their writing skills (Ben-Simon & Bennet, 2007). Thus, finding the right combination of techniques to provide meaningful feedback was our primary goal. For more than a year, we experimented with different approaches and discovered that Web-based digital software such as Essay Grader (Gatsby's Light, 2013), Adobe Reader XI (Adobe TV, 2012), and Jing (TechSmith Corporation, 2013) helped us to provide better quality feedback on students'papers.Implementation to Reach Different Learning StylesStudents write four individual papers in a typical 200-level course at the University of Phoenix. We focused on different areas for each writing assignment in order to meet the varied learning styles and needs of students. …
Publication Year: 2014
Publication Date: 2014-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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Cited By Count: 4
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