5 Spare yourself from repeated typing. When designing computer-delivered
feedback messages, you should only have to type each message once. You
can then copy and paste all of the messages where you need to give several
learners the same feedback information. It can be useful to combine this
process with numbers or letters, which you write on to learners’ work, and
building up each e-mail to individual learners by pasting together the
feedback messages which go with each of the numbers or letters.
6 Consider the possibilities of ‘global’ feedback messages. For example,
you may wish to give all of the learners in a large group the same feedback
message about overall matters arising from a test or exercise. The overall
message can be pasted into each e-mail, before the individual comments
addressed to each learner.
7 Check that your e-mail feedback is getting through. Most e-mail systems
can be programmed to send you back a message saying when the e-mail was
opened and by whom. This can help you to identify any learners who are not
opening their e-mails. It can also be useful to end each e-mail with a
question asking the learner to reply to you on some point arising from the
feedback. This helps to make sure that learners don’t just open their e-mail
feedback messages, but have to read them!
8 Keep records of your e-mail feedback. It is easy to keep copies on disk of
all of your feedback to each learner, and you can open a folder for each
learner if you wish. This makes it much easier to keep track of your ongoing
feedback to individual learners, than when your handwritten feedback is lost
to you when you return their work to them.
9 Make the most of the technology. For example, some e-mail systems
support spellcheck facilities that can allow you to type really fast and ignore
most of the resulting errors, until you correct them all just before sending
your message. This also causes you to reread each message, which can be
very useful for encouraging you to add second thoughts that may have
occurred to you as you went further in your assessment of the task.
10 Use e-mail to gather feedback from your learners. Learners are often
bolder sitting at a computer terminal than they are face-to-face. Ask your
learners questions about how they are finding selected aspects of their
studies, but don’t turn it into an obvious routine questionnaire. Include some
open-ended questions, so that they feel free to let you know how they are
feeling about their own progress and about your teaching, too.
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