Informal feedback in online and face-to-face teaching

Informal feedback in online and face-to-face teaching

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Introduction

Informal feedback in face-to-face and online teaching

Informal feedback to prejudice and micro-aggression

Feedback in teaching and learning comprises two key areas of interaction: Formal feedback in response to summative work and its support activities, e.g. group/individual tutorials, responding to verbal and e-queries, etc.; and, informal feedback, all other dialogue and conversation related to study, course, progress/development, lecturer to student, students to each other, and students to us, in the milieu of all teaching and extra-curricular activities. Informal feedback is the focus of this presentation, explored via our two themes. Navigate through this resource to find out more on these two themes.

Landscape: informal feedback in face-to-face and online teaching

Provocation for practice development

The often quoted – and misquoted - formula of the total meaning in a message being 7% verbal communication, 38% vocal communication, and 55% nonverbal verbal communication, sometimes attributed to Mehrabian, with or without colleagues, sometimes simply referred to as ‘fact’, was anyway only based on secondary research from two studies of 37 adults. It has been dismissed as ‘misinterpretation and misrepresentation’ by Mehrabian himself (see Lappako, 2007). But we do know from peer reviewed primary research in interpersonal communication and teaching practice that the informal feedback we give, verbal and non-verbal:

• creates and maintains relationships (positive/destructive);
• regulates interaction, actions and behaviours;
• influences and instructs;encourages, conceals and deceives;
• and,sustains, maintains and manages identities (Adler et al, 2010).

Practice suggestions

Provocation for practice development

As educators, communication is our professional responsibility, therefore it is also our responsibility to critically reflect on and develop this area of our practice. Smith (1994:42) expands, “People think and act in response to what we say [and do]; the experience becomes a ‘memory’. This we may not fully recognise, but it is there”. We must give as much thought to the opportunities we create, collaborate, negotiate, and react/respond to in online teaching as face-to-face teaching, but we will need to ‘design’ those in to online learning spaces otherwise opportunities for informal feedback between you and the students, the students with each other, and the students with you, will be lost, devalued, marginalised, unchallenged, e.g. loss of the ‘significance of ‘trivia’ of encounters’ (Smith, 1994:41), i.e. of the serendipitous, the breadth and richness of potential learning opportunities, and our capacity and effectiveness to promote engagement.

We give and receive informal feedback all the time: it is a powerful vehicle that ‘leaves its mark’ (Smith, 1994)

Practice Suggestions

Create a discussion forum for each module in Canvas to which all students – and lecturers regularly – engage; use the ‘chat’ function during all M/Teams lectures and meetings; use quizzes in Canvas to garner feedback. See here for more.

Develop a disciplined and deliberate approach to reflecting on and in your practice, individually and in your teams. Interested in training/discussion/briefing, contact Jo Trelfa.

Personalise feedback wherever possible, and, of course, ensure that you use preferred names and pronouns.

Appreciate students’ own networks (and discuss how these can be used powerfully to express, repress, and oppress) and integrate into teaching. See here for more BUT you must familiarise yourself with the University Policy On Student Use and Misuse of Social Media (July 2018).

Discuss student-student, lecturer-student, student-lecturer feedback strategies with your students, together and individually, and select those identified as appropriate and most effective.

Utilise audio and video feedback to give feedback to students on-line.

Broader Activities

‘Flipped flipped’ learning and teaching. See here for more.

Practice Suggestions

More broadly, you could consider activities such as:

Students creating their individual profiles on professional sites (e.g. discipline-based networks, Linkedin, Research Gate, Google Scholar) with feedback from peers and lecturers (and perhaps lecturer invited industry/professional contacts, with student consent) to help them to refine them.

Students creating an (ongoing) online multimedia database that aligns with their individual informal and formal learning goals that they share for feedback with you and each other.

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Students interacting in their own identified professional learning networks and reporting back into the class.