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Using Assignment Feedback Effectively - Opportunities and Challenges

As an online teacher, think about the tools you can use to influence and teach your learners. Your thoughts likely went to using Canvas and leading discussions in the remote gathering. These are the main tools you will use, but there are others as well.

Consider the following example. During the week, one of your learners completes an assignment before the weekly gathering. As part of that assignment, the learner shares some of her thoughts. She asks a sincere question about one of the lesson topics she studied.

• How could you respond to this question?

• How could you use this learner’s response to support her work?

• How could you use the learner’s response to build her faith in Jesus Christ?

The answer is through assignment feedback. In this scenario, you could respond to the learner with an answer to her question. You could also validate her sincere thoughts and efforts to complete the assignment. If you are using Canvas, you could even send an audio or video message back to her.

Opportunities

• Assignments give teachers a glimpse into the hearts and minds of learners. Effective feedback provides teachers the opportunity to clarify misconceptions, reaffirm truth, validate feelings, and teach and testify of Jesus Christ.

Challenges

• Learners can have a hard time finding assignment feedback.

• Teachers may feel they are already providing feedback in other ways. This can make the teachers feel that writing assignment-specific feedback in Canvas is unnecessary or redundant.

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Discuss with Your Supervisor

Take some time to go through the questions listed below. Prepare to discuss them with your local Seminaries and Institutes of Religion (S&I) supervisor.

• How often should I be giving learners feedback on assignments?

• How do I determine what kind of feedback to give them?