Timely and Meaningful Feedback for Student Success
Providing substantive and timely feedback to students is essential. Well-designed courses include scaffolding activities that prepare students for summative assessments that meet the rigor expected for the course level. Giving feedback on activities and assessments helps to ensure that the course as a whole supports students in achieving the learning outcomes. In an online environment, the importance of quality feedback is heightened by the fact that the students do not have the same in-person interaction with you. Review our list of suggested tools and strategies for providing feedback.
| Rubrics | Rubrics provide an equitable tool for evaluating the quality of work from student to student. You can communicate expectations clearly and succinctly. This powerful tool gives you the opportunity to provides substantive feedback to students based on specific criteria which then allows you to evaluate the level of mastery of outcomes and/or competencies. You probably already use rubrics in the classroom that can be adapted to deliver detailed feedback online. Review these rubric samples that you can copy and modify or make a copy of this blank rubric template to create your own. View additional rubric resources by visiting our assessment & evaluation page. Time Saving Tip: Create rubrics that can apply to more than one assignment (discussion, reflections) and use them to grade the assignment and use the comments feature for that detailed, substantive feedback for improvement. |
| Speedgrader | Speedgrader brings together the tools you need to grade and provide substantive feedback to your students. You can annotate document submissions, grade using an attached rubric, and leave text, audio, or video feedback. These Canvas Guides will help you use Speedgrader: How do I use SpeedGrader? How do I add annotated comments in student submissions using DocViewer in SpeedGrader? How do I leave feedback comments for student submissions in SpeedGrader? Share the following Canvas Guides with your students: How do I view assignment comments from my instructor? Time Saving Tip: Use the media feedback function to leave audio or video feedback within Speedgrader. You can give personal, detailed feedback more quickly than typing it out. As a bonus – it helps keep that connection with your students and can convey your tone and meaning more clearly. |
| Knowledge Check/Quiz Question Pre-Planned Feedback | Give students feedback in the answer comments fields within your quiz or exam. To leave feedback for a specific answer, click the comment field beneath the answer. You can also create general answer comments for the quiz question as a whole. Students who select the correct answer will see the feedback in the green comment field. Students who select any incorrect answer will see the feedback in the red comment field. All students will see the feedback in the blue comment field. Note: Any applicable feedback is visible as soon as a quiz is submitted and cannot be hidden from students. Time Saving Tip: Focus on the most difficult or complicated questions that your students historically struggle with in the quiz or exam. |
| Canvas Gradebook | You can leave feedback directly from the gradebook in Canvas, visit this how-to guide. |
| Discussions | Use feedback strategically in your online discussion forums to acknowledge and encourage student feedback, prompt deeper engagement, provide expertise, and bridge content to upcoming course material. Learn more with this resource for online discussions. |
