Feedback

Providing useful written feedback to students is critical to improving their writing. One best practice, using criterion-referenced rubrics, is already covered on the Assessment page. 

The resources here will outline best practices and tools for providing productive written feedback to students. 

provide useful Instructor or Teaching Assistant Feedback

Instructors and lab teaching assistants should remind students of the purpose of feedback:

Instructors and lab teaching assistants should provide select comments in the report margins:


Instructors and lab teaching assistants should also include summative comments at the end:

While marginal comments ask students to pay attention locally, end comments ask students to pay attention globally. 

The following list provides a suggested format for summative comments: 

 

End comment example 1: 

Hello Gretchen, 

Nice job on X. Continue to work on Y. I've noted some specific suggestions above in margin comments. 


End comment example 2: 

Hello John,

Nice job on the lab data presentation and analysis. Continue to work on effective conclusion and objective statement in Intro. Here is a resource for conclusion writing: http://student.engineeringlabwriting.org/conclusions.


End comment example 3: 

Hello Jordan,

A major strength of your lab report is the lab data presentation and analysis. The engineering audience cares the data very well, so your readers will gain enough information from the report. However, your report's conclusion needs improvement. One of the reasons may be you did not have a strong objective statement in Intro (see the marginal comment in Intro). For the next time, you need to write a clear objective statement, which should help you writing a better conclusion. Here is a web resource for how to write conclusions: https://ecp.engineering.utoronto.ca/resources/online-handbook/components-of-documents/conclusions/ .

I look forward to reading your next lab report. 

– Alexa, the lab TA

facilitate Peer Feedback 

Many learning management systems allow for peer review of student writing. This has been demonstrated to be an effective means of support for student writing development. A search of ASEE's PEER database provides numerous examples of effective implementation of peer review. 

Most learning management systems have tools to facilitate peer review of assignments:

Use campus resources

If your college or university has a writing center that can support your students, take advantage of it! Include the use of the writing center in your assignments and course structure.