Personalizing R ED Ink: Hybrid Audio Feedback Model for Student Writing Brian Kerr Instructor (Instructional Designer) Division of Academic and Student Affairs Memorial University of Newfoundland October 4 th, 2011

2 Introduction Have your online class sizes increased? Do you struggle with providing detailed and timely feedback for student writing submissions with online courses? Are you spending far too much time transcribing, inserting, and/or returning comments for electronic student writing submissions? Do students in your online courses think that you are a critical, cold-hearted academic?

3 Overview Simple hybrid feedback model using audio for providing timely asynchronous feedback to student writing within online courses. The proposed model will lead to more efficient yet personalized communication that promotes caring, and increases satisfaction for both the student and instructor. Not new or overly complicated, just something that works, and has clearly been validated through research in the literature.

4 Course Background A two-part undergraduate course with emphasis on proposal writing, research design, project management, and technical report writing. Course is delivered online and is essentially self-directed with students typically at a distance, and many International students (i.e., ESL). Students conceive and design a project idea and submit a draft proposal for approval and review.

5 Course Background (cont.’d) Students submit their draft proposals electronically by a specified due date via the Learning Management System (D2L) "DropBox". Proposals are assessed based on a formalized evaluation rubric, but detailed comments and feedback more the “norm” due to the nature of course design and delivery.

6 Student: Problems/Issues Instructor: Grammar Spelling Sentence Structure Research Methodology Project Management A great deal of comments and feedback, and multiplying that by a class size frequently topping 50 students, an incredible amount of time and ”red ink.” 1-2 weeks to review and provide feedback in a similar manner (i.e., electronically via DropBox).

7 Past Approaches i.MS Word: Re-saving/renaming student submissions Using "strikeout" feature Adding/inserting comments and re-wording/re- writing suggestions using "Track Changes" feature, or different fonts and colors Electronically sent back to the student via the Learning Management System (D2L) "DropBox" Sample

8 P ROS /C ONS of MS Word: Takes a lot of time. (i.e., somewhat tedious to type in everything in appropriate location (s) and adjust font and color) Difficult to accommodate student PDF submissions. Too easy for the student? (i.e., not really thinking about the reasoning behind any suggested changes/modifications)

9 Past Approaches (cont.’d) ii.Adobe PDF Conversion (Version 1.0) : Student submissions are re-saved or converted to PDF Comments or re-wording/re-writing suggestions are inserted using the commenting tools (e.g.'s, sticky notes, shapes, highlighters, lines, stamps, dialogue options, etc.) Electronically sent back to the student via the Learning Management System (D2L) "DropBox" Sample

10 P ROS /C ONS of Adobe PDF Conversion (Version 1.0) : Takes a lot of time. (i.e., somewhat tedious to type in everything, and moreso with all the clicking and the marking of insertion points) Easily accommodates various student submission formats. Student still not really thinking about the reasoning behind any suggested changes/modifications. Confusing for the student. (i.e., all the balloons, strikeouts, colors, bubbles, and insertion points)

11 Past Approaches (cont.’d) iii.Adobe PDF Conversion (Version 2.0) : Student submissions are re-saved or converted to PDF Comments or re-wording/re-writing suggestions are inserted using the commenting tools Audio comments/files inserted, linked, or embedded at specific locations within the PDF document file Electronically sent back to the student via the Learning Management System (D2L) "DropBox" Sample

12 P ROS /C ONS of Adobe PDF Conversion (Version 2.0) : Still takes a lot of time. Easily accommodates various student submission formats. Student still not really thinking about the reasoning behind any suggested changes/modifications, and interpreting specific audio comments. Confusing for the student. (i.e., all the balloons, strikeouts, colors, bubbles, and now the audio insertion points) Raised the most questions back to facilitator after providing feedback in this manner.

13 Current “Hybrid ” Model Student submissions are printed to hardcopy Hardcopies reviewed wherever and whenever Comments or re-wording/re-writing suggestions are written clearly on the document in pen (same as done for a F2F class) Hardcopies are scanned to PDF format 30-second or minute long audio recording made using basic Windows software (Sound Recorder) Both files are electronically sent back to the student via the Learning Management System (D2L) "DropBox" Sample PDF Sample Audio

14 P ROS /C ONS of Current “Hybrid ” Model: May seem like a step backwards at first glance? Easily accommodates various student submission formats. Very easy, traditional, and flexible for instructor/facilitator Provides opportunity to highlight the "good" and to motivate though positive comments about student writing. Much more personal for the student, and in many cases bringing more clarity to the problems or issues associated with their submission. Significant decrease in questions back to facilitator after providing feedback in this manner.

15 Student Feedback Students indicated that they… …were better able to understand instructor’s intent, and that audio feedback provided more useful guidance than written feedback. …preferred audio feedback because they felt they were receiving individual, personal attention, and gained a better understanding of why particular comments were given. …felt that audio comments were more personal than text based comments, thus providing more a feeling of connectedness. …felt the message was personalized, and it seemed more like a class when they heard my voice.

16 "Receiving your audio comments made it seem like you cared more about me and my work – thanks!" Student Feedback (cont.’d)

17 Literature Support Auditory elements strengthen both the sense of community and the instructor’s ability to affect more personalized communication with students. Audio may be most powerful when combined with text and visual markups. 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), (i.e., brief positive affirmations and highlighting can be used to reference a specific area of a students work product with audio used to elaborate)

18 Literature Support (cont.’d) Ice and his colleagues found a number of advantages to voice feedback: Improved Ability to Understand Nuance: Students indicated that they were better able to understand the instructor’s intent. Students also indicated that instructor encouragement and emphasis were clearer. Increased Involvement: Students felt less isolated in the online environment and were more motivated to participate when hearing their instructor’s voice.

19 Literature Support (cont.’d) Increased Content Retention: Students reported that they retained audio feedback better than text feedback. Interestingly, they also reported that they retained the course content to which the feedback was related better than with text feedback. Increased Instructor Caring: Students interpreted the instructor as caring about them and their work more when they received audio feedback over text feedback. This difference was due to audio feedback coming across as more personal than text feedback.

20 Literature Support (cont.’d) Ice and his colleagues also revealed through their studies that students were three times more likely to apply content for which audio commenting was provided in class projects than was the case for content for which text based commenting was provided. Subsequent studies validated these findings on a multi-institutional basis and have provided a direction for best practices.

21 Summary (i.e., “Take Aways”) Asynchronous courses do not provide instructors with as many paralinguistic cues as face-to-face environments. Communicating in text can be difficult and frustrating as we are unsure of whether or not our intent is conveyed. Instructor feedback is a key element of any approach to writing instruction. Humor, encouragement, and emphasis were all much more clear.

22 Brian Kerr Instructor (Instructional Designer) Academic and Student Affairs Memorial University of Newfoundland St. John's, NL Canada, A1C 5R3 T EL : (709) F ACS : (709) E- MAIL :

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