e-Learning Ecologies MOOC’s Updates
Recursive Feedback (Admin Update 6)
Recursive Feedback—or a new generation of assessment systems, including continuous machine-mediated human assessment from multiple perspectives (peers, self, teacher, parents, invited experts etc.), and machine feedback (selected and supply response assessments, natural language processing). Student work can also be assessed through data mining techniques, analyzable either as individual progress, or comparisons across cohorts. Student are also offered just in time feedback, or assessment that is for learning (formative assessment) and not just of learning (summative assessment).
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Video 4a: Why Feedback Matters
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Video 4b: Summative Assessment vs. Formative Assessment
- Video 4c: Crowdsourcing Prospective or Constitutive Assessment
- Video 4d: Socratic Dialogue Finds a Home in the 21st Century
- Video 4e: 4e: What are We Assessing Now?
- Recursive Feedback in Scholar
All Levels of Participation: Make a comment below this update about the ways in which recursive feedback technologies can change the nature of learning. Respond to others' comments with @name.
Additional Introductory and Advanced Participation: Make an update introducing a recursive feedback concept on the community page (not your personal page - because only peers will see that!). Define the concept and provide at least one example of the concept in practice. Be sure to add links or other references, and images or other media to illustrate your point. If possible, select a concept that nobody has addressed yet so we get a well-balanced view of recursive feedback. Also, comment on at least three or four updates by other participants. Recursive feedback concepts might include:
- Formative assessment
- Continuous assessment
- Criterion-referenced (versus norm-referenced) assessment.
- Intelligent tutors
- Educational data mining
- Learning analytics
- Dashboards and mashups
- Quizzes
- Computer adaptive testing
- Diagnostic testing
- Peer review
- Automated writing evaluations
- Suggest a concept in need of definition!
Recursive feedback concepts: diagnostic testing
For me diagnostic testing is synonymous with formative assessment. Diagnostic testing enables the learner to receive feedback from teachers and peers to test their understanding and ideas for the purpose of improvement. Reflective self-assessments given an assessment rubric could also form diagnostic tests.
I have found uptake of formative assessments quite good among my students even when they have been optional. The key to uptake however seems to be the promise of feedback and an opportunity to improve. This is different from the practice during my student days of providing sample exam papers or practice papers to students to help structure their preparation. To some extent, these practice papers helped to identify absolute gaps in knowledge but they were not very useful in identifying more nuanced gaps like 'do I know enough', 'have I demonstrated an appropriate level of mastery' etc.
I think there is an interesting parallel between summative vs. formative assessment, on the one hand, and extrinsinc vs. intrinsic motivation, on the other hand. Summative assessment (or assessment of learning) is by definition outside of the learning process and, as a consequence, may drive only extrinsic motivation. Formative assessment (or assessment for learning) is constituent of the learning process and has therefore the potential to drive intrinsic motivation. In fact, it is arguably the main reason why formative assessment is preferable.
While the relationship between extrinsic and intrinsic motivation is complex, it has been acknowledged in many circumstances that the former can interfere with the latter and, more generally, with the overall learning process.Although it has been mentioned in the course that summative and formative assessment are not necessarily mutually exclusive, it would be interesting to examine the validity of this statement in different situations, in the light of previous studies on extrinsic and intrinsic motivation.
How do you structure a peer review? The question came to my mind as I was reviewing my peers' case studies in Scholar. I could see that the review was well structured. Clearly defined sections, guidelines for grading, the whole lot. But I felt that it was far too well defined. I felt that I also needed an open space, where I could give unstructured comments on the case study. For example, I would like to give a comment on the choice of the technology. Such a comment is not necessarily positive or nehative, it may be just a point of view. Should this open space exist, I would not assign any grade to it. This is for the benefit of the reviewee only. She must decide whether to use any of the open space comments, or just ignore them.
It seems a consensus the great difference of feedback as part of the digital world is the fact that we can get feedback from multiple sources and perspectives, and that increases learning possibilities. In other words, the more the better since feedback is a fundamental aspect in education. If no feedback in online learning is provided, then I believe the first consequence would be some kind of loss of interest on the part of the learner. The videos posted this week were certainly insightful. And they did introduce some new concepts to me, especially the idea of recursive feedback. It seems to me that feedback/assessment has been a problem in education for many years but focusing on assessment for learning (formative) instead of assessment of learning (summative) is definitely a necessary step towards a new learning paradigm. Thinking of an example, I believe the way the case study has been set up here in this course in Coursera and Scholar is a good example of crowdsourcing and constitutive feedback, since the idea is that participants submit their drafts, which will be appreciated by other peers in different moments. Therefore, the whole process keeps changing and the learner keeps improving due to multiple feedback prior to the submission of the final version. This takes place, as Dr. Cope points out, due to the fact that new media has the potential to provide a dialogical architecture going on everywhere, since new media provides users with a chance to comment on the same topic at the same time. Thus, there are multiple voices interacting and building up knowledge based on different perspectives. This reality can definitely change the nature of classroom discourse, and therefore of learning, since the model of Socratic dialogue takes place in a much more intensive environment where everybody's engaged. Finally, it makes much more sense to assess students' work in term of artifacts created - comments, post, case study, etc., than by using a test which most of the time evaluate students by providing summative assessment, counting on students' ability to memorize.
Recursive Feedback
Let us think about a new model for recursive feedback mechanism
I believe and proven by evidence that multi level feedback provide effectiveness on timely.
Just as in below diagram student will be reviewed by known peer and blind peers, mentor, teacher -----> leading to 360 degree angle.
We have to think of the factors affecting to this process and optimize the process
- Time taken to give the feedback
- Quality of the feedback
- good feedbacks should given rewards
- Quality of the improvement depend on the feedback
( please suggest more factors which I can not think of at this time. )
Why Blind peer - to give a full criticism
Why known peer - to help you to improve with friendly support
If we can have a good platform that we can measure these it will produce better outcome..
Please give your input...
Recursive feedback implies this constant dialogue between students and teachers and among students themselves. It is true that students and teachers have to be trained in this process of multiple sources and perspectives (Bill Cope). As Dr. Bill Cope has highlighted, I also believe that recursive feedback has to do with looking back but also with looking forward. There is something else for students to move on, and they need to know how. So, this process of learning has to do with feedback and feedforward, that is with formative assessment. Students should receive comments on what they have created (right and not so right), and on what else they can do to continue progressing (Add a new topic, use a new writing technique, add an opinion to the draft).
When learners are working on collaborative learning communitities, and the rules are well-established, students are excellent at providing peer-feedback. They feel responsible for what they do and say, and their level of engagement and commitment increases. As a EFL teacher, I have experienced that computer-mediated learning spaces that allow for collaboration and peer feedback makes those shy learners speak out and improve their confidence and active participation by using dialogues of a variety of topics. So, I totally support Bill Cope and Mary Kalantzis's arguments in this particular topic. Thanks for sharing such great-presented video lectures.