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As we saw, Hattie claims feedback affects
achievements the most.
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In his view, the feedback can take many
forms.
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Tests, mastery learning, or peer feedback
for instance.
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According to me, MOOCs offer the
possibility
-
to give much more feedback to the
students.
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Much more flexibly and efficiently.
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Let's look back at how teaching typically
works.
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A teacher tells new knowledge to the
students.
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The students try to apply this knowledge
in a problem, an exercise or maybe a test.
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Most of the time, this application is
evaluated by the
-
professor, but, it does not stop there in
good teaching.
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The students need to be told how the
professor assesses the student's work.
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This is the only way to complete a
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loop from the student's perspective that
includes the teacher.
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The only problem with this, and it's
significant,
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is that this does not scale at all.
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Assessing the work takes a lot of time
from
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the teacher, and it slows down the
feedback loop.
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On top, if it's done in the classroom,
within the classroom,
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the teacher has to guarantee that everyone
gets a chance to participate.
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So they get good feedback, and this slows
down
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the class for everyone, even if the class
is small.
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MOOCs are much more flexible somehow.
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You can have, you can add feedback
mechanism in many ways.
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For instance, with a quiz the student gets
instantaneous feedback, twenty four seven.
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With peer grading, the student can get an
-
almost instantaneous feedback, 24/7, but
it's much more personalized.
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Another option for a student to get
feedback
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is to ask a question in the MOOC forum.
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Then the student is likely to get a quick
answer, and maybe
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that answer or that discussion will bubble
back up to the instructor.
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These are just the options that are
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already possible in MOOCs, sometimes in
rudimentary form.
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This being said, some of those feedback
mechanisms
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on the big plat, platforms need to
improve.
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For instance, intense interaction between
students or even
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with the instructor on the forum is not
enough.
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Again it does not scale, the instructor
has to be
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everywhere or the student has to monitor
all those discussions.
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This needs somehow to be structured, so
other students can benefit as well.
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And even structure to the point that the
students contribution can
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make it above the fold into the real
content of the course.