Personalising Learning – Short Learning Activity: Oral feedback (to students)

Walter SteinkoglerEvening College Salzburg, Austria steinkogler@live.at

Situation

• Evening college, upper-secondary level, young adults 17+, 50% f2f-tuition, 50% distance learning

- Students who decide later in life that they want to do their A-levels and university admission exams

- “adult” does not mean “successful learner”- Big differences in their individual/personal learning history- Mostly feedback in writing. - Students (often) don‘t read the feedback, only look at the mark.- Students rather accept „feedback“ with MARKIN, a correction software which

seems to be more „fact-based“ with its statistics than the teacher.

Methodology – Written Feedback with MARKIN

• Feedback on written work with MARKIN• You define your correction buttons

(positive/negative)• Load the student paper in RTF (no macros)• Position the cursor and click your buttons• Add footnotes – don’t write into the student’s text

like in WORD• Automatic statistics (pos./neg.)

Methodology – Oral Feedback with JING

• Oral Feedback on written/spoken work with JING• Decision of student: you listen to it or you don’t!• No superficial scanning of (written) teacher

feedback!• Load student text on screen• Mark (in colour) passages you want to comment on• Start JING Video Capture• Record your comments• Save in the cloud – send link via email

Resources

Software:• MARKIN (25 BP)• JING (free)• Screencast-O-Matic (free)• Snagit• WORD

Hardware:• Any PC, Notebook• JING requires FLASH

Other materials:• Headset/ Microphone• Samson Go Mic USB

Recommended (€37.-)

http://screencast.com/t/gEMz8KheFCF  (6th Semester)http://screencast.com/t/ZGPkc1mQTexL (1st Semester)http://screencast.com/t/KkmgcMRDTGR (1st Semester)

Examples of oral feedback on written work

1. Less time consuming than written feedback.2. You need a headset and Internet connection.3. The technology is easier than many people think.4. The students are easier to convince of the advantages than the teachers.5. The teacher gives “me” advice.6. Requires a more “mature” student. Perhaps not so easy with very young learners.7. A “door-opener” for more multimedia in learning.

Advantages/ Disadvantages

ResultsFor the student:• Students feel more personally

adressed by the teacher’s voice talking to them than in written feedback

• Student cannot just scan the written feedback. Either he/she listens to the teacher (usually) to the end. Otherwise he/she does not know what the teacher said.

• Very positive reactions from the students. They like it.

• No videos are sent by mail. Only an internet link to the video.

For the teacher:• Faster than typing

written feedback.

• Easier to include positive remarks and encouraging comments.

• Teacher is more in the role of a facilitator/ advisor than the teacher with the red pencil, marking and correcting.

• Concentrating on the main aspects. Never too long!

For learning:• Much more

personalized learning experience.

Credits• Abendgymnasium Salzburg, Austria• Maria Ives-Strasser, English-Teacher (Screencast

examples)