Blogs and feedback

Leveraging digital technologies to enhance feedback, Part 2: bootstrapping blogs for peer review on written work.

Principal applicant: Professor Michael Northcott

Team member: Mr Jeremy Kidwell

Abstract

For this grant project, we will leverage the use of blogging to enhance existing practices in the School of Divinity to improve the student experience of feedback through a team-based pilot project targeting the Christian Ethics: Sources (level 8) course.

We will pilot the use of peer review on text-focused weekly blogging to help mediate the transition for first-year students from their experience in schools of a guided learning experience focused on numerical assessment to selfregulated learning at the University.

Along with Blog writing and commenting, the student experience will be augmented with several 'social' features including enhanced profiles and awards and profile badges which tutors and students can use to affirm exemplary work. We will also enhance communication to students about their use of the technology and the pedagogical purposes of feedback through a webcast, workshop and documentation.

For assessment of project success, we will develop more robust metrics for the measurement of student learning using blogs. This will incorporate questionnaires, focus groups, and digital analytics from the Wordpress platform to gather usage data and student perception.

Final Project Report

Powerpoint presentation given by Jeremy Kidd at the PTAS Forum 2014