Effective Personalized Feedback: Developing Resources, Practices and Capacity to Provide Personalized Feedback to Students at Scale, Across Disciplines

TitleEffective Personalized Feedback: Developing Resources, Practices and Capacity to Provide Personalized Feedback to Students at Scale, Across Disciplines
Faculty/College/UnitArts
StatusCompleted
Duration2 Year
Initiation04/01/2019
Completion03/31/2023
Funding Details
Year 1: Project YearYear 1
Year 1: Funding Year2019/2020
Year 1: Project TypeSmall TLEF
Year 1: Principal InvestigatorSilvia Bartolic
Year 1: Funded Amount33,732
Year 1: Team Members

Silvia Bartolic, Instructor, Sociology, Faculty of Arts
Simon Bates, Associate Provost, Teaching and Learning, Office of the Provost and Vice-President, Academic
Mabel Ho, Sessional Instructor, Sociology, Faculty of Arts
Firas Moosvi, Graduate Student, Physics and Astronomy, Faculty of Science

Year 1: Summary

Targeted and well-timed feedback is essential for student development and advancement (Ambrose et al., 2010) but with increasing class sizes and limited instructor time, personalized feedback is difficult to provide. Learning analytics tools, such as OnTask and Canvas Message Students Who, aim to address the logistical challenges of providing feedback at scale, and have been shown to be effective in increasing student motivation and achievement (Paredo et al., 2017; Vigentini et al., 2017). However, there is limited understanding of students’ perceptions of effective feedback and how to time and target feedback to be effective (Polous, 2008). There are four aims of this project:

  1. Document the impact of personalized feedback on student motivation, satisfaction, engagement and performance;
  2. Assess student perceptions of feedback (what is useful, supportive and effective);
  3. Connect with faculty/staff to develop guidelines/best practices for providing personalized feedback at scale;
  4. Build capacity in individual departments (with faculty and teaching assistants) to provide discipline specific personalized feedback based on developed resources.
Year 2: Project YearYear 2
Year 2: Funding Year2020/2021
Year 2: Project TypeSmall TLEF
Year 2: Principal InvestigatorSilvia Bartolic
Year 2: Funded Amount14,290
Year 2: Team Members

Silvia Bartolic, Senior Instructor, Sociology, Faculty of Arts
Simon Bates, Associate Provost, Teaching and Learning, Office of the Provost and Vice-President, Academic
Firas Moosvi, Teaching and Learning Fellow, Master of Data Science Program
Sandra Brown, Instructor, Faculty of Land and Food Systems
Jonathan Verrett, Instructor, Chemical and Biological Engineering, Faculty of Applied Science
Alireza Bagherzadeh, Instructor, Chemical and Biological Engineering, Faculty of Applied Science
Nick Hall, Lecturer, Asian Studies, Faculty of Arts
Brianne Orr-Alvarez, Instructor, French, Hispanic and Italian Studies, Faculty of Arts
Elisa Baniassad, Senior Instructor, Computer Science, Faculty of Science
Luisa Canuto, Instructor, French, Hispanic and Italian Studies, Faculty of Arts
Kathie Shoemaker, Adjunct Professor, Language and Literacy Education, Faculty of Education

Year 2: Summary

Targeted, well-timed feedback is essential for student development and advancement (Ambrose et al., 2010) yet students generally report being dissatisfied with the feedback they receive (Ferguson, 2011) while increasing class sizes and limited instructor time make personalized feedback difficult to provide. Learning analytics tools, such as OnTask and Canvas analytics, aim to address the logistical challenges of providing feedback at scale, and have been shown to be effective in increasing student motivation and achievement (Paredo et al., 2017; Vigentini et al., 2017). There is, however, limited understanding of how to time and target feedback (Polous, 2008) and how to provide feedback that students find effective.

This project aims to:

  1. document the impact of personalized feedback on student motivation, satisfaction, engagement and performance over a range of course types, disciplines and class sizes;
  2. assess student perceptions of feedback (what is useful, supportive and effective);
  3. develop guidelines/best practices for providing personalized feedback at scale;
  4. build capacity for faculty to provide discipline specific personalized feedback.
Year 2: TLEF ShowcaseYear 2: TLEF Showcase