A consistent refrain in creating practice opportunities and assessments is the idea of feedback. Learners should have specific information about how well they did with the practice opportunities provide to them. Otherwise, they will not know whether or not they have enough of a grasp of the material to successfully retrieve it and use it at a later time. We have just studied a chapter on providing practice opportunities in e-Learning situations and the authors suggested that the feedback needs to tell the learner not only whether or not the practice was completed successfully (whether the answer was right or wrong, if appropriate) and why.
I agree completely that feedback is extremely important in both practice and assessment situations. I'm a bit perplexed on how much feedback to provide in an assessment situation. At that point, do you tell the user whether the question was answered incorrectly -- and do you provide the correct answer? Or do you direct the learner back to the instruction to find the correct answer? I've heard arguments for both sides. I am guessing that it depends on the audience and the purpose for the assessment.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
so this is why i don't like getting behind because the feedback becomes irrelevant. i prefer the kind of feedback where when you fall you are encouraged to get back up and try again. i think that's how i learned how to walk. is that possible in the schools and professions? at least during training?
Sure - I do think it's possible. With schools, it takes a skillful teacher to manage a classroom and still give individual encouragement when needed. In professions, it often depends on the trainer or the supervisor (which are often one and the same) and the working environment. I wonder if there's a theory somewhere about a feedback continuum where learners are given less feedback as they become more proficient in a task.
Post a Comment