Formative Feedback

Recommended Practice

Reasoning
Formative feedback is a way of assessing student learning to inform the instructor if more review is necessary, informing students if they are ready for assessment, or a way of assessing your course activities and teaching strategies so that you can identify challenge areas for students and make modifications in your course as you go. Formative feedback should not be counted toward the final grade. Formative feedback is crucial if you are going to provide the students with the best learning experience possible and design the best course possible.

Assessing Student Knowledge for Instructor Feedback

This is assessment OF learning. If you want to know what students are learning before you give a quiz, you could have them complete a quiz that does not count toward their final grade. Based on the results, you could see where more teaching/learning is needed. This could be done in Vista using the quiz tool. This could also be done with review questions in a discussion area.

Assessing Student Knowledge for Student Feedback

This is assessment FOR learning. If you want your students to know where they stand in their learning before you give a quiz, you could have them complete a quiz that does not count toward their final grade. Based on the results of the quiz, they can see where more studying is needed. The self-test tool also could be used for this purpose since you do not need to know how they score in this case.

You could also provide games by using StudyMate. Georgia Southern University has a site license for a software program called StudyMate. StudyMate uses regular test questions to create games that students can use as a study tool. StudyMate is made by the same company as Respondus, the software used to create quizzes for Vista. If you can use Respondus, you already know how to use StudyMate. If you wish to use StudyMate (or Respondus) Please contact the Center for Online Learning.

View examples of games created with StudyMate.

Assessing a Learning Module for Course Improvement

This has to do with course design. If you want to know if there are gaps or problems in the design of each learning module, e.g., your teaching, the activities, or the materials, you could ask them a few open-ended questions using the Vista survey tool:

  • What do you like best in this learning module?
  • What do you like least in this learning module?
  • How would you improve this learning module?

Open ended questions will give you richer feedback. Students will appreciate, too, that you are genuinely concerned about your course and their learning.

By using the survey tool, you will get feedback without knowing who said what. It would be a good idea to inform them that the module evaluation is anonymous. You might want to consider doing this in every learning module the first time you offer a course for face-to-face or online.