Audio Feedback

Post date: Mar 31, 2017 3:40:39 PM

While lecturing the course Algebraic Number Theory (ANT), I decided to trial out the idea of Audio Feedback. This had been implemented before in the department of Hispanic, Portuguese and Latin American Studies by Beatriz Arias (see this page). In a Spanish module, the students would receive a combination of audio, visual and written feedback. The theory is that students can more easily engage with the feedback and that audio feedback can be more detailed than written feedback (for the same amount of time spend on it).

The course ANT has bi-weekly problem sheets which, while not for credit, students are encouraged to do and hand in. After they have been marked, I would look at each script and record myself given verbal feedback for 3-4 minutes.

After the first four problem sheets, I asked the students what was their thoughts on audio feedback. The vast majority of students were in favour for it, thought the feedback were useful and would recommend that it is implemented for other courses.

While this is encouraging, on the implementation side of things, there are several drawbacks that needs to be addressed. First of all, the time commitment was greater than anticipated. While originally I thought I would only spend around 2 minutes per recording, I found that this was not long enough to say what I needed to say. Furthermore, the preparation for each recording (I ended up re-reading the scripts several time to form an idea of what I should say) was non-negligible. This drawback might in part be mitigated with more experience using audio feedback, and in part be mitigated by changing the work-flow.

Second of all, I think the students might have benefited from a visual feedback at the same time. As it stand, they had to listen to my recording while looking at their marked script (which had written feedback) and guess on which specific part of the question I was talking about. In fact, for the Spanish module, Beatriz Arias did use visual as well as audio feedback. The problem in maths, is that problem sheets are done by hand and not handed in electronically (even if they were, they would be marked by hand). A possible suggestions, and something to try in the future, would be to use a camera to record a top-view video of the script, with the recording happening as I mark the script. This idea does need the right equipment, and probably takes some practice.