Making a feedback artifact in the form of audio or video (as opposed to a text paragraph) has a wide range of benefits, both in creation (it’s faster and more enjoyable to make), and reception (they are clearer and more appreciated by learners). The technology needed to do this is available right now (it takes just two clicks in Canvas to record a video instead of entering text), so there are just a few practice tweaks that can be made to gain these advantages.
The following breaks down the benefits, responds to some of the key concerns and goes through the steps you can take to start making video feedback for your cohort. This resource draws upon on the work of Prof Michael Henderson (Monash) and A/Prof Michael Phillips (Monash) who have developed these frameworks and shown their effects in practice.
While it might feel like taking the steps to create video or audio feedback would be more time consuming, if you consider the process below (See ‘How to Get Started’) it’s possible to see how you can quickly get into a system that is swifter than carefully constructing a clear block of written feedback. Additionally, even with a short period of time allotted you can communicate more – in 5 mins from 150 written words to closer to 600 spoken.
Instructors using video feedback often report that they actually feel more like teachers in conversation with their students, and while they don’t specifically look forward to marking assignments, they no longer dread it. Using this format provides the opportunity to think about what you can tell students that will engage their curiosity or help them find the next thing to grasp.
Video and audio allow for the transmission of so much information that is lost through plain text. Tone and, in the case of video, gesture and expression, can help students endlessly in understanding your meaning and how you felt about it when you said it. And hearing this directly from you results in a personal connection, and highlights your involvement with their education.
From a technical setup standpoint there is little difference between video and audio, so the choice is really down to your preference. Video provides the additional benefits of gesture and facial expression, as well as showing mouth movements to make language clearer. If you are a course coordinator trying to bring the idea into your teaching team you may feel that asking tutors/demonstrators to put themselves on video might be too much to ask, in which case audio feedback may be the best option. Regardless of the method chosen, both offer benefits around production, clarity and connection.
While you might feel like you would have to create detailed notes, the immediacy of going straight from assignment to your recorded feedback means that scripting isn’t really necessary and actually helps in making it more focused and alive.
To structure what you say within the feedback block consider the framework below.
The following framework was developed by Prof Michael Henderson and A/Prof Michael Phillips and provides a series of useful moments you can use to structure what you will say within your feedback.
Say ‘Hi Andrei’. It’s been shown that feedback without a salutation may come off as terse so make sure to greet the recipient.
Say something of what you know of the student ‘I’ve been impressed with your in-class comments’. This shows that you actually know and acknowledge them as an individual which will help them to be more open to your feedback.
Let them know that you will be giving feedback on, for instance, three things and what they can do to improve for the next assignment. Setting these expectations makes things clear for the student and yourself – you’re not justifying their grade, you are giving them feed forward.
Moving into the core of the discussion you can start by giving a quick overall summary of the position/quality of the work – ‘Overall this is a really well planned out assignment’.
If the student has made any structural mistakes perhaps best to get them out of the way in order to focus on other elements – ‘Take care with your referencing for the next assignment as there are a few issues here with the ordering of the elements’.
This should be the meat of your discussion – what have you noticed about their work and what should they do moving forwards to improve their practice.
Sign off and invite them to reach out for further clarification – ‘I hope this was useful and get in touch if you need further information’.
We have made this quick cheat sheet of this framework that you can keep handy till you get the hang of this pattern.
There are a few things you might feel concerned about in switching to this different type of feedback practice, but as it turns out some of the expected issues aren’t as much of a problem as one would at first think.
You may be concerned about not being able to make a ‘clean’ recording by creating the video in an impromptu fashion, but this is quite ok. The aim is for these videos to be conversational, not polished productions, and this real-time consideration actually proves that you are thinking about the students’ work. You shouldn’t feel the need to re-record for any ‘mistakes’, in fact it is recommended that you don’t as this will slow down the process. Ultimately, ‘mistakes’ add to these videos as they create authenticity and it does not take anything away from them.
Those who have used video feedback in practice have found that while students do feel a little apprehensive at first they very quickly get over it with the salutation and relational comments.
Once again, those who have used video feedback in practice have found that this doesn’t happen. The logic here can be unpacked – if students understand their feedback better and feel a personal connection to you, and can see your efforts to help them, they are less likely to feel like they need to be argumentative or litigious about marks.
Video or audio actually provide you with a much better opportunity to express your empathy – you can be there for the student and show that you understand how disappointed they might be through your tone and expression. In this way communicating this information through these rich media options is much easier than trying to carefully construct an emotionally sensitive response with text only.
As we are suggesting a new medium for communicating here accessibility needs to be taken into account. Unfortunately at the current time it is not practical to create captions for individual feedback videos, so it is likely that a few people will need or prefer a text equivalent.
When you discuss assignments with students indicate that you will be giving feedback in video (or audio) form, but suggest that if they would like it in text form instead they just need to contact you or their tutor. This might work better than giving students an open A or B choice (by minimising decision making for them and saving you from having to obtain and track everyone’s responses) and will still provide those who need it every opportunity to request what will work best for them.
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