Higher Education
Giving feedback in skills-based courses is like judging competitive figure skating. You watch or listen carefully as learners demonstrate their skills, then have only a split second to evaluate the technical and stylistic aspects of their performance.
Whether you teach future nurses, educators, language learners, or actual figure skaters, the challenge is the same: how to give timely, targeted, actionable feedback that’s personalized for every student.
The most efficient and effective solution—if you’re ready to think outside the text box—is using blended feedback to coach, correct, and connect with learners in hybrid and online courses.
Blended feedback, also known as multimodal feedback, is any combination of written, audio, or video feedback. It blends the best aspects of synchronous and asynchronous interactions to make feedback easier for instructors to give, and easier for learners to understand and use.
When applied to skills-based learning, blended feedback also gives instructors a way to provide verbal (not just written) critiques and to model proper techniques on video.
In traditional, face-to-face courses, you can observe student presentations, performances, or skills demonstrations in real time, then give verbal critiques. And, critical for skill development, you can also show students what they’re doing wrong and how to do it right.
While synchronous feedback is immediate and helps build human connections, it’s constrained by time, location, and each learner’s ability to absorb and apply what they hear or see in the moment. In other words, you and your students have to be in the same place at the same time, and they have to understand and remember everything you say.
Asynchronous feedback, on the other hand, offers greater flexibility for how and when you assess learning. It also gives students a takeaway, usually in the form of written comments, that they can reflect on as they practice and improve their skills.
By expanding asynchronous feedback to include audio and video responses, you can leverage the verbal and physical cues associated with synchronous feedback, while maintaining the flexibility of asynchronous delivery.
All feedback, regardless of delivery method, is a form of communication. Whether you use written, audio, or video feedback depends on what or how you’re trying to communicate.
In their guide to giving better feedback with technology, the Chronicle of Higher Education says, “Context is critical when it comes to using technology in your classroom and giving feedback.”
Here’s a summary of their best practices for using different types of feedback in the context of skills-based learning.
As more skills-based programs transition to hybrid or online formats, blended feedback is emerging as a time-saving solution for instructors and a skill-building tool for students.
Blended Feedback: The Triple Axel of Skills-Based Learning Share on XAnd, because audio and video recordings enable instructors to give more (and more nuanced/understandable) feedback in less time, students benefit from receiving both higher quality and a greater quantity of feedback to help improve their skills.
The key takeaway: Your feedback should be crystal clear—unlike the scoring system for competitive figure skating, which remains a mystery to those of us without blades on our boots.
Request a demo to see how GoReact enables blended feedback for video assessment.