Using AudioVisual Feedback to enhance student engagement with learning

1
Using Audio/Visual Feedback to enhance student
engagement with learning

• Research Team-
• Marilyn Farmer mfarme01_at_bucks.ac.uk
• Jill Walters jwalte01_at_bucks.ac.uk
• Wendy Yellowley wyello01_at_bucks.ac.uk
• School of Business and Management Chalfont Campus

2
Feedback?

• Crucial for student learning
• Difficult to get right
• Complex range of perceptions from students and
  tutors about its role
• Negative perceptions of feedback in national
  student survey
• Research evidence
• Our research project

3
Research project

• LEP funded
• Aim to explore impact on engagement and student
  learning of
• audio-visual feedback
• Objectives
• To identify, design and develop an audio-visual
  approach to providing feedback including pod
  casts, videos and DVDs
• To utilise the feedback and feed forward
  opportunities in lectures and on the VLE
• To assess the impact of the feedback on student
  learning through questionnaires and interviews
• To evaluate the findings and to make
  recommendations on the role of audio-visual
  feedback on student learning

4
What does the literature tell us?

• We tend to allocate more time and resources to
  the transmission of content than to thinking
  about assessment and feedback (Price and
  ODonovan, 2008)
• The learners experience of evaluation and
  assessment determines the way in which the
  student approaches (future) learning (Entwistle,
  1991 cited by Struyven et al, 2005)
• Students often dont read their feedback, nor do
  they understand it (Gibbs and Simpson, 2002)
• It cannot simply be assumed that when students
  are given feedback they will know what to do
  with it (Rust et al, 2005)

5
Social Constructivist Model

• Students need to understand clearly what
  constitutes a good piece of work
• Tutors need to share a common understanding of
  the explicit and implicit criteria
• Important to create a dialogue between staff and
  students, students and students, staff and staff
• A dialogue can also help to de-mystify the
  academic jargon
• A social constructivist view of learning argues
  that knowledge is shaped and evolves through
  increasing participation within different
  communities of practice. (Rust et al, 2005)

6
Challenges to feedback

• Large groups
• Widening participation and diversity
• Availability of tutors
• Instrumentality of students
• Modular structure
• Consistency across teaching teams
• Timing
• Anonymous marking

7
What have we found so far?

• You can listen to it and watch the
  expressionsit helped me to understand the
  assignment and things to avoid
• The fact that you can watch as well as listen
  doesnt allow your mind to wander as much
• Its something new and it feels like a modern
  approach
• I thought it was great- you can listen to the
  points of views of both students/lecturers. You
  can also listen again and again
• It was useful to hear what students thought
  instead of what lecturers tell us. We can relate
  to them and learn from their mistakes

8
A taste of the negatives

• It was more generic
• It was easy to miss a point made
• The moving background was hypnotic and made me
  sleepy - lost concentration
• The commentary was good but the visuals were
  distracting

9
Thoughts for the future

• Powerful feedback approach which can engage
  students in reflection and the process of
  learning
• Audio visual feedback can de-mystify the jargon
  and supports the transfer of tacit knowledge and
  meaningful understanding
• Audio visual feedback seems to appeal to
  students in the digital age enabling Just in
  Time learning
• Additional dimension to support diverse learners
• Facilitates wider feedback and learning from role
  models (peers and employers)
• Available, flexible, accessible

10
Moving forward

• Ongoing research and a paper for publication will
  be prepared
• Conference session and paper to be presented at
  16th International Conference on Learning, July
  2009

11
Thank you for listening

• How do you engage students in understanding
  assessment requirements and learning from
  feedback?