What connotes prompt feedback?
In order for education to take place properly, a learning environment which encourages feedback and reflection is necessary. Feedback and reflection allow learning to focus around what students do and do not know. The existing level of students’ knowledge and competence must be established initially, and follow-up to that level should reveal itself over the course of a semester. In this manner, the student is encouraged throughout the course to ask and answer questions according to his or her pace. Though this pace is directed by the instructor, the student’s learning curve may be challenged per his or her existing knowledge.
How can feedback be promoted in the classroom?
The instructor, by utilizing educational software in a learning environment at a fluent level, should already be familiar with active learning techniques. In addition to using these techniques to engage students in the classroom, teachers can use these techniques to sample feedback from their pupils. There are many ways in which this feedback can be established. Email responses to classroom discussion questions, on-line quizzes, tests, student portfolios, and an electronic distribution of grades all give teachers easy access to the abilities and capabilities of students. With these resources available, a student can take time to reflect on his or her hours in the classroom.
What good is this doing for the student?
College is an opportunity for young men and women to discover not only more about the world around them, but also about themselves. In using the aforementioned resources to reflect upon her education, the student begins to discover more about herself as a person. It is this self-discovery that teaching should encourage, guided by curricula and an instructor’s ability to clarify concepts and ideas. Students need to be challenged to meet goals, and individual goals vary for individual students. By gauging a student’s ability to meet certain challenges, the instructor is then able to determine the student’s existing knowledge and competence. Armed with this knowledge, the student will then have the ability to impact her family, her school, her community, and the world.
