One of the best teachers I have ever had was one of my grad school professors (L. Abeel). What made this teacher so great was her feedback on writing assignments. Feedback can be really tricky for teachers. An instructor wants to make corrections while at the same time motivating students to improve their work. This balance in very important in the type/tone/quantity of feedback provided. Too much constructive criticism can be discouraging for students.
Another important aspect of feedback is timeliness. Students want and benefit from immediate feedback. When teachers collect assignment and do not grade them in a timely fashion, returning them to students much later, students have already lost interest/focus on what they were working on. Being out on maternity leave I collected an assignment right before I had my baby and did not return it until three weeks later. The work I put into the comments I wrote I felt had much less of an impact because the papers were returned so much later from when the students actually completed them.
My biggest frustration is when I feel that as the instructor I have invested more time and energy in providing feedback/comments for an assignment then the actual assignment took the student to complete. I am not sure my students understand how much time and energy it takes to assess, evaluate, and comment on student writing.
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