Online Peer Feedback Case Study

School / department: School of Arts and Humanities

Programme: BA Spanish Joint Honours

Modules: Translation and Interpreting; Contemporary Latin American Society
Credit Points: T and I 20 credit points (online discussion counts for 12.5%), CLAS 20 credit points (online discussion counts for 25%)

Level of study: Level one – Level three

Activity: Intrinsic feedback and feed-forward provided using TELT (Technology Enhanced Learning and Teaching) methods such as online discussion boards

Aims:

• Provide students with a variety of feedback and feed-forward to widen their perspective of their own work and the work of others
• Afford students the opportunity to consider the relative development of their work compared with their peers

The following example has been ongoing practice for approximately 4 years.

Contact: Neil Hughes

Case Study
Since 2007 students studying on the BA Spanish Joint Honours have been provided with intrinsic feedback through TELT (Technology Enhanced Learning and Teaching) methods, in particular through online discussion boards which form part of the assessment of two modules:

• Translation and Interpreting: online discussion boards are used for students to post and comment upon peers’ translation work
• Contemporary Latin American Society: online discussion boards are used to discuss, in Spanish, contemporary Latin American issues

Intrinsic feedback can be defined as feedback which is delivered as an intrinsic part of the student learning experience rather than simply as a response to assessment tasks. This may include formative feedback on assessment tasks and feedback on students’ general scholarly development as individual or group learners; it may include tutor feedback, peer feedback and/or self assessment. The two modules discussed here include all these types of feedback.

It was considered that an intrinsic approach to feedback through the use of discussion boards would support students to think and to regularly re-evaluate their learning and work in the way a practitioner would. Learning and contributing to different perspectives on their own and other people’s work on a regular basis ensures that students are open to new perspectives and are ready to respond with their own ideas, as they would be expected to do in many professions.

Translation and Interpreting
Online discussion boards are introduced halfway through the first term of Level 1. The tutor supplies texts to be translated; students work in small groups on their allotted translation in the first week of the cycle; in the second week, students work individually to critique others’ translations providing comments about grammar, style etc; in the third week, the groups are re-formed and each group reflects and amends etc. Students decide which peer comments to incorporate or ignore; students must explain why they have incorporated or ignored each comment. This cycle takes place once as a ‘mock’ and a second time for assessment. The mock gives students an opportunity to get used to using the discussion boards and to contributing to discussions in this way. Students are generally respectful and constructive in their comments. Students who lack the skills or confidence to contribute in face-to-face discussion are more willing and able to contribute in a meaningful way to online discussion; this often boosts confidence and this is carried through into students’ spoken discussion work.

Assessment concentrates on how students provide feedback to others and respond to other people’s feedback on their own work as well as the quality of their actual translation work. Students are marked according to the timings of their posting, e.g. a student would be marked down if they did not post until the last week of term, because the idea is that all students participate in the ongoing discussion. Students are marked down if they post but do not interact with comments about their work. Assessing participation in this way ensures that there is an emphasis on critical thinking processes as well as on the quality of the work produced. Students’ comments are not marked individually but rather marking focuses on the quality of comments across the year.

Gradually over time less guidance and commentary is provided by the tutor until student discussion takes place mostly independent of the tutor; by the final year students do not need a great deal of coaching, so beyond the first week the discussion board is mostly student-led. The fact that the tutor is not always present within the discussion board (or does not always make their presence known) helps the students to engage and take ownership over the discussion board.

Previously translation and interpreting was undertaken in class which meant that the exercise was quite time-constrained. Undertaking translation and interpreting online allows students to participate in discussion activity at a more flexible pace and timescale. The students’ time spent on the task increases significantly as the course progresses and it seems to be an activity they enjoy. In some years students submit up to 6000 words. On average 300-400 posts of variable lengths are made each year collectively by students.

Contemporary Latin American Society
As in the Translation and Interpreting module discussion boards are introduced halfway through the first term of the first year. The module uses blended learning methods including a fortnightly lecture, reading, self-test questions, videos and the discussion board.

The discussion board segment of the module makes up about one-sixth of the module. The tutor provides suggestions of articles for online discussion with the aim of developing not just language skills but also the ability to write at a high level in Spanish about contemporary issues. Discussion boards were first introduced in language modules as a monitoring tool to gauge whether students were reading outside class. Initially all discussions about the Spanish readings were conducted in English however students commented that the discussions should be conducted in Spanish to improve written Spanish and as a result the discussions have been in Spanish ever since. Some research has shown that written practice helps all communication skills and as such the module would seem to provide a useful mix of learning.

Benefits to staff
It could be argued that face-to-face, one-to-one feedback is the most effective, however, it is time-consuming. Students are provided with limited but regular face-to-face feedback as they move through the course including feedback on the quality of their comments. The nature of discussion boards – e.g. the fact that posts are little and often and with an emphasis on style as well as content – means that the tutors marking the discussions can focus on student learning. Tutors do not need to mark every word (which can be the time-consuming aspect of marking more conventional work) but rather can focus on students’ comprehension, style and overall learning progress.

Some might argue that in contrast to essays and other traditional written communication methods, discussion boards do not allow time or space for proper referencing or the opportunity to develop an argument fully. It could be argued however, that discussion boards provide students with opportunities to enhance communication and language skills in ways which might be more useful to real-life situations. There is less contextualisation but more opportunity to develop critical thinking (an NTU graduate attribute). At the same time there is scope to introduce referencing into online discussion boards – although students would not usually post references they could record any references they use and submit these at the end of the module as part of the assessment.

Benefits to students
The discussion boards have proved an efficient way of providing meaningful feedback to students on their progress throughout the course as well as freeing up time to provide rigorous summative feedback at the end of a module.
Students seem to appreciate the volume and variety of feedback on offer – online staff and peer reflection and face-to-face staff and peer feedback – which enables them to identify and correct their mistakes, compare their own development strengths, weaknesses and ideas with peers and develop their style earlier in the course than with some traditional assessment methods. Students are writing every week and receiving comments on that work soon after they do it; the timeliness of the feedback is a significant factor in the popularity of the method. An additional benefit for students seems to be that the discussion board encourages social integration; some students who did not know each other offline made friends online and continued the friendships offline.
The way the assessment is set up provides students with the opportunity to focus on all seven topics which may come up in the module exam rather than just the one topic which they might focus on in a single essay.

Feedback
Most staff members have engaged positively with the idea of using TELT methods as a result of its successful use in the two modules described here e.g. European studies now use some TELT methods including wikis.

When the discussion board was first introduced feedback from students indicated that the method was time-consuming. The tutor addressed this feedback by reducing the frequency with which students had to contribute a translation from 2 discussions per week to 1 per week. This in turn reduced the frequency with which students were required to comment on other people’s translations from 12 discussions per week down to 5 discussions per week.

Overall feedback from students has been positive. Some students have commented that the broad range of topics discussed supports general learning and also contributes very positively towards exams where broad knowledge is required.

Considerations
It could be considered that successful student engagement and therefore student learning through the discussion boards may be dependent on the discussion boards being assessed. To ensure successful engagement it helps if the discussion board provides a significant focus for the module. There is a need to consider the weighting of the module compared to the expected student time commitment – not least because students tend to be very enthused by the module and may therefore commit more time to it than the credit weighting suggests.

No plagiarism has been identified to date but it may be useful to consider ways of plagiarism detection for discussion boards.

To maximise the relevance of the discussion boards and the resulting learning it is important that there are links between the readings and lecture themes. The discussion board might be used to set up a topic prior to a lecture or to investigate a topic in more depth following a lecture. Any questions posed by the tutor need to be open to provide opportunities for reflection and social interaction, for example what do students think about the issues raised in the book or article, do they agree or disagree with the author’s perspective and why.

Tutors may require some support to establish discussion boards in the first instance. To start and run a discussion board requires subject, pedagogical and technical knowledge. Tutors will always have subject knowledge but may lack the other two in relation to discussion boards. In this case it would be beneficial to have a colleague willing to act as mentor, e.g. a colleague who has achieved prior success in establishing and running discussion boards.

The size, cultural context and nature of the course can affect the success of intrinsic feedback methods. In this case group sizes are about 20 members.

There has been one occasion of conflict where one student was less than tactful in their comment wording. To minimise the risk of this happening it is considered that students should be made aware of the rules of the game; although students may be ‘digital natives’ that does not necessarily mean that they understand how to participate in an academic online discussion. It is important that students are briefed on 'netiquette', i.e. appropriate behaviours in discussion boards, the importance of posting promptly etc. These ground rules should be available within the discussion board itself and also discussed with students prior to the first posting.

Future Developments
Following the success of the online discussion boards the tutor is considering introducing a multi-language online discussion board as a pre-induction team-building exercise. This would involve students posting a short biography prior to attending university and would give students the opportunity to interact socially and ask questions of tutors and peers. It is considered that this would aid transition and would help to foster a culture of feedback among students in preparation for their studies.

Further information: Neil Hughes, Subject Leader in Spanish Studies