Dr. Adam Fein, Vice President for Digital Strategy and Innovation at the University of North Texas, has spent the last several years researching the impact of A.I.-generated instant feedback on student motivation and success. In a new article for eCampus News, Dr. Fein delivers findings from this research and explains why meaningful feedback is especially critical in our digital landscape.
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Timely and meaningful feedback is crucial to student success. In large or online classes, giving constructive feedback to every student is difficult and time-consuming. To solve this issue, institutions need to strategically invest in the proper technology to give instructors the tools they need.
In his article, Dr. Fein explains how ed-tech tools like Packback are the key to moving beyond the pandemic and empowering students to be stronger writers and thinkers. Students who were provided with real-time feedback from Packback developed a better understanding of course material.
Dr. Fein also found that Packback’s Curiosity Score system motivated students to form clear posts and provide multiple sources to receive higher scores. This “friendly competition” resulted in better discussions.
“A comparison of two different online discussion platforms found that students who used Packback cited a lot more sources than students who used the other platform. It also appears that the real-time feedback feature, which suggests how responses can be improved with supporting evidence, is an effective way to push students to go beyond their gut reactions and marshal facts and figures to back up their arguments. That’s crucial for developing curiosity and communication skills–which are crucial for students’ success not only in the classroom, but also in the workplace. ”
Excerpt from “Why feedback is critical for your institution’s students”
