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Black Hawk College
Best Practices for Exemplary Online Instruction


PRINCIPLE 4:  GOOD PRACTICE GIVES PROMPT FEEDBACK.
"Knowing what you know and don’t know focuses learning.  Students need appropriate feedback on performance to benefit from courses.  When getting started, students need help in assessing existing knowledge and competence.  In classes, students need frequent opportunities to perform and receive suggestions for improvement.  At various points during college, and at the end, students need chances to reflect on what they have learned, what they still need to know, and how to assess themselves." (Chickering & Gamson, 1987)

The following best practices from the literature on online teaching and learning may provide you with specific ideas for what this principle might look like in an online course.


  1. Provide clear, specific instructions about what is expected via the syllabus and assignment instructions.

  2. Provide opportunities for self-assessments in the form of ungraded pre-assessments (e.g., What do you know? Where should you start learning new info? How does your current competence relate to the course outcomes?), ungraded practice quizzes or assignments, or self-reflection about learning progress and personal goals to improve.

  3. Utilize coaching strategies to provide early insights into strengths, areas needing improvement (and why) on larger assignments - prior to final submission to be graded.

  4. Enlist multiple opportunities for feedback. Ex: automated during online practice activities, peer review, posting of "exemplary answers" to essay questions on tests, rubrics to individuals, tests/quiz scores, self-assessments, informal "catch them being good" comments.

  5. Provide feedback on graded assignments to multiple facets of the assignment, weighting the facets as communicated to students up front.

  6. Provide access to an online grade book at all times.

  7. Provide prompt turn-around to student questions via email, voice mail, Q&A Forum in the discussion board, etc. Set up automated acknowledgments that assignments have been received.

  8. Handle non-course-related feedback by providing individual advising, offering referrals and links to qualified college resources and offices (e.g., career center, advising, tutoring).
Other ideas:
 
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