How important is Feedback?

Feedback is the issue that students complain most about at a University. From my limited observation and experience, the students only get worried about their grades – either for individual assignments or final grades – if they haven’t received what they consider to be adequate and appropriate feedback during their studies. So what does this look like and will students ever be satisfied?

As a relative new academic, I started in August 2009, in my first semester of teaching I delivered as best as I could using Stephen Brookfield’s autobiographic lens approach (even though I didn’t know about Brookfield at the time!). I provided feedback as I had experienced as a student. Sadly with academia, often a new academic is given the keys to the office and that’s all the induction and training that’s offered. It’s a sink or swim approach – and as someone who swims between 1-2 kilometres a day, I was determined I would not sink! Not possible!

In this first semester of teaching, I offered feedback as best I could within an incredibly heavy teaching load, developing and teaching a unit that hadn’t been taught before and course convening (program coordinator) for the first time. By the end of the semester, reviewing the student feedback on my own performance, I realised I had a lot to learn. While I thought I had been giving students ongoing feedback – via emails, conversations, in-class discussions, etc, I realised that I hadn’t explained to students that this was feedback. They were so used to receiving written comments on an Assignment Coversheet believing this was the only type of feedback there was. While I was providing this approach to students, I realised I had to change my ways if I wanted to ‘educate’ them about other styles of feedback. This is something I have now been exploring since this time.

In an effort to educate students about the different approaches to feedback, I now include in the Unit Outline (Course or Subject Outline) the following:

Feedback can be given to students through a variety of ways, including individual, group, whole of class, self or peer feedback. This can be through written comments, student consultation, private discussions, email, phone conversation, before and after classes, through class discussion, by formal peer feedback, peer discussion, postings on Moodle, etc. For this assignment, feedback will be offered through these approaches and not through the traditional assignment feedback sheet (hand written comments). As assignments within this unit are formative, which means they build upon learning skills from one activity and assessment to the next, tutors may privately provide feedback to individual students to assist with ongoing skills development.

‘Feedback’ is an ongoing discussion within classes – and I now label Feedback as ‘Feedback’ on all appropriate communications – emails, Moodle posts, in class discussions, when students offer peer feedback in class, etc. I Call it, I name it, I label it as much as possible. It would be an interesting exercise to count the number of times I now use the word ‘feedback’ and then compare it to that first semester of teaching in 2009! There would be a dramatic increase.

As well, for individual and group assignments, I now provide detailed feedback via Moodle – it’s all electronic. This has proved to be a great time saver and enables me (and my tutors) to offer more detailed, lengthy feedback than the traditional approach of handwritten comments on the assignment sheets. All of us can type reasonably fast, so this is a much quicker approach than the laborious hand written comments – and it also means students can read my comments! (I often can’t read my own writing!).

It’s critical to find time saving approaches as the University (University of Canberra) has a policy that feedback on assessment tasks must be provided within 10 working days (essentially two weeks) of their submission. However, marking about 100 assignments makes this is almost impossible if I want to provide valuable feedback that will assist the student in their development. This is one of the many challenges for the academic: delivering against university operational requirements that have been introduced with the belief that it assists the students, but in reality it could be counter to what is trying to be achieved. I refuse to send back assignments with comments like ‘good work’ or ‘needs improving’. I try to offer feedback as I would want to receive it – which means that I need to consider the students work. I thought I did well getting feedback to all assignments back within three weeks. If I had continued to use the old approach of writing the feedback on the assignment cover sheet the students would not have received the feedback within this time period as I would have handed them back at the next class, wasting valuable time. However, due to Moodle and posting the feedback online, students receive the feedback and their grades as soon as it is posted; making it far more efficient for them and for me. This doesn’t mean I won’t consider continuous improvement. Something I now realise is a key role for any academic is to consider ways to save time: how to be effective, yet find efficiencies!!

Considering the reflections I have undertaken on the most effective ways to deliver feedback, it was disappointing to receive the feedback in my own studies for the Education Technology subject I have been undertaking for my Graduate Certificate in Tertiary Education. The reason I decided to undertake the GCTE was to learn, develop, improve and have the ability to effectively reflect on my teaching and learning. I want to be pushed and challenged.

The feedback on my Wiki Assignments as posted here on this blog, was as a Rubrics (refer Rubrics Feedback above) – but not what I considered to be an effective rubrics that would assist me to value add and reflect on my skills and abilities – and assist with my teaching. Sadly, it was the most amount of feedback I had received in this subject to date.

However, there have been lots of positives from receiving this limited, somewhat vacant feedback. As a result of my own disappointment and concern that this is a standard offered to academics eager to learn about best practice teaching and learning approaches, I have further reflected on feedback approaches and considered how best to offer and shape it for students. As a result, it was a key discussion that my sessional tutors and I had in our regular end of semester working dinner catch up. We have decided that a suitable feedback approach would be to use a rubrics as well as incorporating detailed, individual, personalised feedback in the comment section – not just three sentences that could be applicable to anyone. We will continue to post this electronically as we all agreed this was a great time saver and gets to the students quickly. We feel that by introducing a rubrics – and including this in the Unit Outline (subject guide), this will assist students further to understand what they will be achieving against. While I have always included detailed Marking Criteria and Expectations of Grade Standards, we believe that with a rubrics it can add another dimension that will further support the student. Our goal is to provide more detailed feedback, and more quickly. Fingers crossed we will achieve this!

Reference:
Brookefield, S. (1995) Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

and the journey continues...

I originally established this blog as an assignment task within the Education Technology subject that I have been studying in Semester 1 2011 as part of my Graduate Certificate in Tertiary Education. As a relatively new academic, I started working in academia full time from August 2009, I’ve decided to continue this blog as I thought it a great opportunity to document my reflections on teaching and learning – and how I (and others) challenge myself, develop and grow into a role (that of an academic), a role that I am passionate about and find extremely fulfilling.

I welcome all comments and contributions.

Message in (online) Bottle

Due to my extensive professional experience in marketing communications throughout the past 20 years, and my passion to share this knowledge along with my industry contacts with my students, I am frequently asked by my students ‘what can I do to get ahead in the industry?’

My goal is to guide students so they can achieve and be successful creative leaders in the industry, not as Harley (1993) suggests how ‘in many university courses, the teacher’s role is a didactic one, “telling” students what they need to know rather than a coaching role.’

I have the strong belief that if we learn and inquire about others and everything we are in a better position to understand each other, demonstrate respect and be willing to share ideas. I aim to lead by example and encourage my students to be a sponge: to question, consider and create ideas through their learning (as supported by Light and Cox, 2005).

I also reflect on my teaching and consider a range of approaches that will assist me to be an effective teacher who engages with students and peers. I support the leading academic writer and critical thinker, Stephen Brookfield’s concepts of the four ‘lenses’ (1995). These being: theoretical, student, peer, and autobiographical lenses.

In one of the subjects that I convene at University of Canberra, Client Relationship Management 8137, I use as a textbook, ‘The Art of Client Service’ by Robert Solomon (2008). This ‘text’ is symbolic of the way I teach as it is the furthest thing from a text book. It is an advertising industry professional’s honest and at times brutal account of the industry. It achieves what Herrington and Herrington (2006) explain provides a ‘multitude of perspectives to enable students to examine problems from the point of view of a variety of stakeholders (and this) is more conducive to sustained and deep exploration of any issue or problems’ (page 6).

Last year I contacted Solomon in an effort to establish a relationship between this leading industry professional and my students. Even though he is based in New York, Solomon has demonstrated tireless ongoing support and encouragement to my students. He wrote to them suggesting one thing that they could do to get ahead in the industry is to ‘be voracious consumers of everything, and I mean everything, in both old and new media. Ideas can come from anywhere, and you will find inspiration in the most unlikely of connections. Be open to this, and pursue this, with passion and dedication.’ (personal communication, 2010).

At the beginning of each semester I provide students with an information sheet on ‘Useful Advertising-Marketing Communications Resources and Websites’. I do this as I encourage and support my students to be ‘sponges’. Included on this list is the Australian industry’s e:bulletins Mumbrella http://mumbrella.com.au/ and AdNews http://www.adnews.com.au/ These online resources offer free daily e:bulletins that can be delivered direct to an email in-box featuring up-to-date information and news on the advertising-marketing communications industry. Anyone and everyone in the industry subscribe to these bulletins, and industry also makes itself available to be interviewed or showcased – as it is acknowledged that both these online resources are influential and can influence.

I know my teaching challenges students as I place high demands and expectations on them, including being aware of industry trends and current affairs issues, but I want them to be the future leaders of our industry. Students appear to respect this approach and applaud it. This is demonstrated through the strong results I receive in the University’s Unit Satisfaction Surveys on which academics performances are measured. Comments from my Advertising Strategy 6809 2011 anonymous student survey include:

‘Sally Webster has so far made Advertising Strategy a good experience. Her strengths include knowing exactly what she expects of herself and her students. for example, she often critiques professionals in the field of advertising and explains why she does this. I appreciate that she emphasises the fact that advertising is constantly changing, that the consumer and customer will not respond positively to the same tactics they were exposed to years ago.’

‘I have never had a tutor who knew so much about everything, Sally seems to be one of those people that is always on the ball - something extremely rare to find these days, she is the best tutor I've ever had.’

‘Sally is very informed about the material and tries to get us as the students involved and uses a lot of examples to show us and link that to the \"theory\"’

‘Sally is very enthusiastic and passionate about advertising. She's concise and clear in the strategies and theories she teaches us and provides examples we can relate to which makes it fun and easy to pay attention.’

As Race and Pickford (2007) explain: ‘Possibly the most pleasant feedback that any teacher can be given is that their enthusiasm was inspirational to students’ (p15).

Race and Pickford highlight how satisfying this is, however they do not focus on how students and peers can inspire and motivate teachers, which also relates to the Brookfield ‘Student and Peer Lenses’(1995). For me, this inspiration from my students and my peers supports and motivates me to be an even more informed, effective and innovative teacher.

References:
AdNews http://www.adnews.com.au/ accessed 7 May 2011.

Brookefield, S. (1995) Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Harley, S. (1993). Situated learning and classroom instruction. Educational Technology, 33(3), 46-51.

Herrington, A. and Herrington, J. (2006) What is an Authentic Learning Environment? Idea Group Inc.

Light, G. & Cox, R. Learning & Teaching in Higher Education: The Reflective Professional. Sage Publications, London, 2005.

Mumbrella http://mumbrella.com.au/ accessed 7 May 2011.

Race, P. & Pickford, R. Making Teaching Work: ‘Teaching Smarter’ in Post-Compulsory Education. Sage Publications, London, 2007.

Solomon, R. (2008), The Art of Client Service, 58 things every advertising & marketing professional should know. New York, NY: Kaplan

Shake up your Inspiration…

One of my Advertising-Marketing Communications students, Katy Treble, explained in her Campaign Research Brief for Advertising Strategy 2011 (quoting Cowling, 2010): ‘Australia has one of the highest uptakes of social media in the world.’ She advised: out of Australia’s ‘population of 21 million, 14 million Australians are Internet users…The huge amount of Internet users in Australia resulted in $2.3 billion in online advertisements sales in 2010’.

For Advertising-Marketing Communications students social networking needs to be part of their routine, even though there is nothing routine about it. They not only engage with sites, but due to the volume of online advertising they have the opportunity to evaluate and critically analyse the effectiveness of campaigns, greatly assisting them in their critical thinking, conceptual skills, and creativity.

As discussed in the post ‘It’s all about you…YouTube’, social networking platforms enable the industry to share and showcase their creativity, as well explain the effectiveness of a creative campaign through an online case study. As highlighted in the post ‘You want evidence…you get research’, proving the success of a campaign either through sales or behavioural change is what all campaigns are trying to achieve.

One way to consider it is: ‘to expose students to expert performance is to give them a model of how a real practitioner behaves in a real situation’ (Herrington and Herrington, 2006. p5).

Treble (2011) explains that YouTube has been the global leader in delivering online videos to a mass audience. Its success it has also assisted in encouraging other sites to develop, such as Vimeo www.vimeo.com , a New York based social networking site that allows open membership so as to share creativity (videos). In an effort to enhance the users creativity, the site features tools to assist users in producing their videos (source: Vimeo, 2011).

Another site that is more focused on the sharing of creative ideas is the Australian-developed The Inspiration Room, http://theinspirationroom.com/daily/ (source: The Inspiration Room, 2011).

What both have in common with other similar global social networking sites, is that the industry uses these sites as a vehicle to showcase their work and promote their achievements. In a teaching and learning context it means they provide easy access for students to source some of the leading and innovative creative campaigns. As mentioned previously, this supports students as they have the opportunity to source campaigns that might appeal or be in a style that reflects their own work. It also enables them to analyse the success or lack of and how this could impact on their own work.

In my classes I actively encourage the sharing of ideas and I promote this through the online learning platform Moodle. I establish discussion posts where students are encouraged to source campaigns and analyse their effectiveness against theoretical concepts. In addition to YouTube, students tend to seek out case studies from Vimeo and The Inspiration Room. Two examples that were sourced by students were the Litago Cow Shake http://vimeo.com/19249751 and the 2010 Ad of the Year (2010 Cannes Lion and Primetime Emmy), the Old Spice ‘The man your man could smell like’ http://theinspirationroom.com/daily/2010/old-spice-manmercials-man/ The students who analysed and shared these campaigns through online Moodle forums were able to explain strategic industry approaches that were used in both campaigns.

As Herrington and Herrington (2006) describe: ‘In many university courses, students are given no examples of experts performing (a) task, or of expert comment, to enable them to model real-world practice.’ (p5). By encouraging students to use digital platforms, especially social networking sites, as they might use an academic text book provides them with first-hand experience of industry’s innovation and creativity.

References:
Annous, N. sourced: Proctor and Gamble’s Old Spice ‘Smell Like a Man’ from The Inspiration Room:
http://theinspirationroom.com/daily/2010/old-spice-manmercials-man/ and http://theinspirationroom.com/daily/2010/smell-like-a-monster-on-sesame-street/ as referenced on post: ‘The Man Your Man Could Smell Like’. University of Canberra Learn Online Moodle, Client Relationship Management 8137, Tuesday, 12 October 2010, 04:41 PM.

Bakk-Rostad, L. sourced: Litago Cow Shake online case study from Vimeo: http://vimeo.com/19249751 as referenced on post: ‘Guys, you really need to see this’. University of Canberra Learn Online Moodle, Advertising Strategy G 7732, Thursday, 17 February 2011, 01:33 PM.

Herrington, A. and Herrington, J. (2006) What is an Authentic Learning Environment? Idea Group Inc.

Old Spice (Proctor and Gamble) 2010 creative campaign ‘The man your man could smell like’ produced by Wieden+Kennedy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owGykVbfgUE Winner 2010 Grand Prix Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival http://www.canneslions.com/ and 2010 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Commercial http://www.emmys.tv/
Further reference Wikipedia ‘The Man your Man Could Smell like’ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Your_Man_Could_Smell_Like accessed 7 May 2011.

The Inspiration Room, http://theinspirationroom.com/daily/ accessed 7 May 2011.

Treble, K. (2011) Campaign Research Brief for Heineken. Produced for University of Canberra Advertising Strategy G 7732, Semester 1 2011. Referencing: Cowling, D. (June 2010). Social Media News, ‘Social Media stats in Australia – Facebook, Blogger, Myspace’, retrieved from: http://www.socialmedianews.com.au/social-media-stats-in-australia-facebook-blogger-myspace/

Vimeo, www.vimeo.com accessed 7 May 2011.

You want evidence...you get research...

It is interesting how many incoming students about to embark on their Advertising-Marketing Communications course are surprised by the amount of research and evidence-based material that is used in developing successful creative campaigns.

As a teacher of Advertising-Marketing Communication I have a mantra that I encourage my students to chant back to me.
I ask: “What is advertising all about?”
The correct answer my students are encouraged to enthusiastically shout back is: “research”.
I continue: ‘And, what are you researching…?”
I want my students to bellow out so it can be heard down the corridor: “the target audience and getting as much evidence on our target audience so we can persuade them to buy or change behaviour.”

Those who answer correctly get a Cadbury Freddo. So, when it is the whole class that responds, there’s a lot of Cadbury chocolate going around. But, most importantly the message and importance of research gets through.

Why do I offer Cadbury? One of the most effective evaluation and research briefs of any communications campaign is that of the Cadbury Gorilla (Barreyat-Baron and Barrie, 2008). This case study, which is available on WARC (formerly known as the Worldwide Advertising Research Centre), won an Institute of Practitioners in Advertising Award in 2008. This case study sets out all the elements that need to be considered and undertaken when developing an advertising strategy. It demonstrates the research, evaluation, and strategic analysis required for a successful creative campaign – in the implementation phases, pre-development of the creative and post-campaign evaluation - all critical learning for advertising-marketing communication students. It is an ideal case study to show students and encourage them to analyse, reflect and compare with their own campaign research briefs.

As discussed in the post ‘It’s all about you…YouTube!’ my goal is teach students so they can be creative, job ready graduates that will be leaders in the industry and be recognised for delivering the highest of professional standards. I do this by focusing on Work Integrated Learning and by combining approaches of practice-led and research-led teaching.

Having access to websites and resources such as WARC assist students to achieve and importantly to identify, recognise and understand what cutting-edge, professional industry standards are.

University of Canberra students have the opportunity to access WARC through the public pathway www.warc.com or if they access the website through the UC Library it provides students with member access, which means access to all case studies, industry analysis, forecasting, and other data.

WARC is a London, based marketing trend research and forecasting agency that was established more than 25 years ago (source: WARC, 2011). The agency is recognised globally for its high research standards and influential industry reports. Due to my efforts to encourage students to review and study WARC case studies, many have produced very high professional standard Campaign Research Briefs. Therefore, I contacted WARC to consider accepting some of my students Research Briefs for its website. WARC has considered this favourably and are currently working with some of my students. If accepted, it will be the first time any report prepared by a student has been published by WARC.

The approach I have adopted supports the University of Canberra’s mission to encourage students to develop high level research skills and techniques, and encourage them to engage in broad discussions about research in their field. My teaching approach also advocates the Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research ‘Guidelines for the 2011 Higher Education Research Data Collections (2010) that details: ‘Research is defined as the creation of new knowledge and/or the use of existing knowledge in a new and creative way so as to generate new concepts, methodologies and understandings.’

By analysing and reviewing award winning case studies that are available on WARC such as the Cadbury Gorilla campaign case study, it assists students to achieve professional standards and develop a greater understanding of the importance of research and evidence-based creative ideas in a global context.

References:
Barreyat-Baron, M. and Barrie, R. (2008). ‘Cadbury – How a drumming gorilla beat a path back to profitable growth: a real-time effectiveness case study’. Advertising Works 17. IPA Effectiveness Awards 2008. London. Retrieved from: http://www.warc.com.ezproxy1.canberra.edu.au/ or http://learnonline.canberra.edu.au/file.php/5277/IPA_Case_Study_Cadbury_Gorilla.pdf

‘Cadbury Gorilla’ (2007). Creative Agency: Fallon. Retrieved from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnzFRV1LwIo accessed 25 April 2011.
Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research ‘Guidelines for the 2011 Higher Education Research Data Collections (2010). Australian Government.

WARC (formerly Worldwide Advertising Research Centre). www.warc.com accessed: 25 April 2011.

I have set up a very simple blog using Google www.blogger.com I deliberately chose the bookish template as I liked the juxtaposition of the traditional bookshelf / library look with the blog's title of Sally's Education Technology.

I have also activated the settings so it is private and not for public access. I couldn't find where I could change the settings so it is displayed in chronological order...but I'm unsure that this is important for me to view the original post first. I'm so used to email where the most recent hits the top of the screen and when the messages fall off the screen - well, they do just that!

I've wondered how I could integrate Blogging into my classes. The units I have developed have a strong blended learning focus - and sometimes I wonder how far to go...and is it possible to go 'too far', especially in the learners mind. I am very mindful that students are trying to learn and at times just comprehend - everything can be fresh and new...perhaps if we keep adding in new social media tools it could just be a bit too much for some?

Before I answer this I believe it's best to explain about my teaching style.

I know I now spend a substantial amount of time educating my students on my teaching and learning approaches (I have units / subjects of about 150 students). I didn't when I first started at UC and many students struggled, because they were used to a more traditional approach to learning: the lecture and the tute - and going page by page in a text book (often a dull text book!).

My approach is more dynamic, very much focused on blended learning and Work Integrated Learning. It is formative in style and has that great buzz / jargon of 'constructive alignment'. I believe by not trusting my students and explaining my teaching style meant that many students struggled because it seemed they were just trying to coping with the learning of new material in a university context - then I was expecting them to understand and adjust to vastly different teaching styles in their new learning environment. They weren't used to the freedom, flexibility and some appeared not to want to be independent learners. I came to this conclusion as the more senior students (those in 3rd and 4th years) and mature age students coped so much better with my style.

I didn't give up though...what I did in my second semester of teaching was to trust the student more, respect them and tell them my approach. I walked and talked them through this. By giving them this respect they accepted it more, even though they said it was challenging, but they embraced it and the majority loved it. The results in my Unit Satisfaction Survey were dramatically different. In my first semester they were mid-50's and mid-60's, in my second semester they were all mid-90's. For one unit (admittedly a small unit) I got 100s! Pretty fantastic. Of course it wasn't just about explaining this teaching and learning approach to the students - I got these USS results for a range of reasons. However, I really believe this approach of discussing my style with them helped them and supported them as they had a better understanding of why I was doing something and how this assisted them.

For information, Unit Satisfaction Survey (USS) is the University of Canberra's student survey that is used to measure our teaching performance and the results provided to DEEWR).

So, would I use blogging in my teaching. One area that I could integrate it is on the Unit Moodle site and replace the announcements. This way students could respond. But then they do have this opportunity in other Forums. Interestingly, I set up a Wiki on my Moodle site and my postgraduate students asked me to convert it to a Forum. They much preferred this style...why? because...drum roll! they could see the unread posts - whereas they couldn't with a Wiki. To them it was more important to manage their time and know they had to go to a forum to read a post, than to dip in and out...with Wiki's there is an assumption that you have the time to do this. I suspect it could be the same with blogs. If the majority of online material was published via Moodle, then I couldn't imagine students would be overjoyed having to log on to another site / network to get more information, that could easily be placed on the Moodle site.

At UC we have a Yammer blog for all staff....perhaps my reaction, reflection and thoughts on this would be worth holding off for another post...it's a hmmm....reaction!

Overall, I support blended learning and believe it is useful for us as educators to explore different tools and options. But, I also believe it's important to only use them if they will add value - and not just for the sake of it. The critical thing is that students learn, are motivated and achieve against the desired learning outcomes.

Sally