Feedback & Assessment

One of the hardest parts of teaching is feedback and assessment of student writing, and is made especially difficult in an online writing course. In an online course instructor presence is diminished and giving effective feedback requires being creative with technology. The time spent with Dr. Beth Hewett, the co-instructor and author of textbooks on the subject of online feedback and assessment, was invaluable. The examples of written feedback in the OWI Portfolio show how we learned to use comments and direct feedback to improve student writing. I incorporated the format and depth of feedback to students’ writing in the face-to-face composition courses I taught in the same semester.

 

To improve instructor presence in an online course, we also developed recordings and “chat” methods to provide student feedback. Lastly, I developed a grading rubric used to assess student writing.  This course uses a variety of software and advanced features beyond wordprocessing to provide feedback and assessment. Completing this course improved my understanding of the theory of the profession of teaching composition, evaluating rhetorical situations and using correct strategies and using technology to deliver texts.