05 - Feedback [Massive Teaching]

From Week 1 Lecture Videos of "Teaching goes massive: new skills required"
by Paul-Olivier Dehaye
See
https://etherpad.mozilla.org/pr8ZtLXODg
and
http://www.elearnspace.org/blog/2014/07/09/congrats-to-paul-olivier-dehaye-massiveteaching/

As we saw, Hattie claims feedback affects
achievements the most.

In his view, the feedback can take many
forms.

Tests, mastery learning, or peer feedback
for instance.

According to me, MOOCs offer the
possibility

to give much more feedback to the
students.

Much more flexibly and efficiently.

Let's look back at how teaching typically
works.

A teacher tells new knowledge to the
students.

The students try to apply this knowledge
in a problem, an exercise or maybe a test.

Most of the time, this application is
evaluated by the

professor, but, it does not stop there in
good teaching.

The students need to be told how the
professor assesses the student's work.

This is the only way to complete a

loop from the student's perspective that
includes the teacher.

The only problem with this, and it's
significant,

is that this does not scale at all.

Assessing the work takes a lot of time
from

the teacher, and it slows down the
feedback loop.

On top, if it's done in the classroom,
within the classroom,

the teacher has to guarantee that everyone
gets a chance to participate.

So they get good feedback, and this slows
down

the class for everyone, even if the class
is small.

MOOCs are much more flexible somehow.

You can have, you can add feedback
mechanism in many ways.

For instance, with a quiz the student gets
instantaneous feedback, twenty four seven.

With peer grading, the student can get an

almost instantaneous feedback, 24/7, but
it's much more personalized.

Another option for a student to get
feedback

is to ask a question in the MOOC forum.

Then the student is likely to get a quick
answer, and maybe

that answer or that discussion will bubble
back up to the instructor.

These are just the options that are

already possible in MOOCs, sometimes in
rudimentary form.

This being said, some of those feedback
mechanisms

on the big plat, platforms need to
improve.

For instance, intense interaction between
students or even

with the instructor on the forum is not
enough.

Again it does not scale, the instructor
has to be

everywhere or the student has to monitor
all those discussions.

This needs somehow to be structured, so
other students can benefit as well.

And even structure to the point that the
students contribution can

make it above the fold into the real
content of the course.