Technology-Enhanced Assessment Feedback on Preservice Teachers’ Core Teaching Practices

Abstract

The teaching practicum has been characterised by “wicked feedback” problems. Feedback is essential for enhancing student teachers’ core teaching practices. Student teachers are most vulnerable when they have to present lesson segments and may not know whether they are doing it correctly. Providing actionable, timely and constructive feedback is challenging at the best of times and this became even more so during the COVID-19 pandemic. This proactive action research study aims to provide an overview of the utilization of technology-enhanced feedback (digital screen recording) on preservice teachers’ practicum assessment tasks and to report on their perceptions of, reflections on, and uptake of the feedback. A group of fifteen preservice teachers and two teacher educators from a university in the North West Province participated in the study. The findings indicate that technology-enhanced feedback motivates student teachers to engage with the feedback because it facilitates the personalization of feedback, fosters relationships between preservice teachers and teacher educators, and increases the uptake of feedback that results in improved teaching practicum performance tasks. The study informs a developing understanding of the pedagogic potential of feedback via technology and its uptake within an environment that is becoming increasingly digital. The article concludes with recommendations for exploiting the potential benefits of technology-enhanced feedback to ensure uptake and facilitate the improved teaching practice of preservice teachers within teaching practicum settings. Keywords: Technology-enhanced, Feedback, Preservice teachers, Core teaching practices, Assessment