5 ways technology has improved our ability to give feedback

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As a composition and rhetoric teacher and child of the digital age, I rely on software programs to help me evaluate student writing better. Here are five ways electronic feedback trumps my traditional pen n’ paper feedback:

1.      Digital feedback is tidier

My handwriting is very messy (“chicken scratch” as we say in my country). MS-Word eliminates this problem instantly. Perfect, clean, digital typing appears on student papers. This means I can worry less about students understanding my handwriting, (or about the awful image my handwriting sends out!) and more about the actual ideas I'm conveying.   

2.      Digital feedback is highly visual

Gone are the days when we had to have a rainbow of pens in our arsenal. Feedback via software helps students “translate” feedback more effectively. It allows consistent interactive comments, the tracking of changes, an array of effects, and many other options that, among other things, are practical and nice.

3.      Digital feedback is more efficient

There are many many ways in which digital feedback aids efficiency, but I’ll stick to two.

Friendly or formal: do I have to pick just one?

"University Life 21" by Francisco Osorio

A recent article in the Guardian entitled "Should Teachers Banter More With Their Students?" discusses how teachers should navigate the wobbly line between being approachable individuals and authority figures.

In the writer’s opinion, the key is for teachers to be professional and accountable towards students while also revealing their human side from time to time. One way the author does the latter is through code-switching, which, for her, involves mixing the complex concepts of her material with more lighthearted, informal discourse:

I might use slang to poke fun at myself. I might even engage in discussions about who should or shouldn’t have made it to the finals of The Voice. Whatever it is, showing myself as a figure in authority who is nevertheless approachable is something students welcome. It can become a teacher’s most useful behaviour management technique.

I'm with her on that. Practices like code-switching and informal discourse are a good tool for us teachers. For example, those moments when I let my guard down with (weak) puns, passionate put-downs of bad writing, Eddie-Izzard-style ramblings etc...often usher in a palpable connection in the classroom. Put simply, my students seem more willing to listen and therefore more open to learning. 

That extra butterfly

Picture this. You're teaching two sections of the same course, both scheduled on the same day, back to back. They cover the same subjects and follow the same lesson plans in the same order. A friend of yours would like to attend one of those sections. Which one do you recommend?

My first instinct would be to recommend the later class because it would probably be the more polished one. I would have just finished giving the exact lesson only a short while ago, so the points would tend to still be clear in my mind, the chain of ideas well-linked, the flow of the lesson more rehearsed, and my feelings more confident.

In the earlier class, the lesson and all that comes with it would as yet be unperformed. In this class, if a student asks a question, it's a little more thought-provoking, a little less expected. I might notice a mistake in my slides. I might realize that the activity I'm conducting should have been 20, and not 15 minutes long.

However, that earlier class does have an edge in at least one area (as a few recent lessons have made me realize): spontaneity. Based on my experience, asides in my lecture seem to come more easily in classes such as these. I can joke, improvise, stray from the script. I also think my performance is slightly more surprised, more authentic, and less robotic.

Actors often talk about butterflies in the stomach as a good thing. They don’t wish the feeling away. That’s because too little fear would make them jaded. They know that extra emotion and pressure can bring out a more powerful performance.

So, to go back, which section would I finally recommend? I’ll have to think about it :P But for now, having the best of both worlds would be nice. Some rehearsal in my teaching is essential, and consecutive classes/semesters produce that. But spontaneity is also useful. And being "under-prepared" can provide that impetus, that spontaneity, that extra butterfly. 

On students, horses and water

In my first year of teaching, a colleague quoted a well-worn saying to me: “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink”. Something clicked when I heard that saying. 

Up until that point, I had found myself wanting very hard to have all my students reach the same standard. I inwardly thought I could get the best out of everyone and have everyone excel – whether that meant all the class writing a perfectly-structured paper or completing a basic assignment correctly.But pretty soon, I found the expectation unrealistic. And I realized it came with a real burden - the burden of being responsible for everyone's success in the course. But as the saying posits, people, (like horses!), will often only do what they have a mind to do.

Those words from my colleague proved to be very freeing. Mulling the proverb and coming face to face with the reality of the classroom, I realized that it was unrealistic of me to expect everyone to succeed, for the simple reason that not every student wanted to, or could, perform at a high level in a particular situation for a whole host of reasons. 

Of course, the saying might be interpreted as an excuse for bad teaching, or an exculpation of sorts. I'm also aware that, at different points, I have to be a motivational teacher or a compassionate one. However, shedding the pressure of unanimous high performance is necessary. For me, the effect is mostly relief, which carries over into the classroom (in the way I engage with students) and outside of it (as I prepare for lectures, for instance).