To Boldly Go: Feedback as Digital, Multimodal Dialogue

Abstract

This article is concerned with digital, multimodal feedback that supports learning and assessment within education. Drawing on the research literature alongside a case study from a postgraduate program in digital education, I argue that approaching feedback as an ongoing dialogue presented in richly multimodal and digital form can support opportunities for learning that are imaginative, critical, and in-tune with our increasingly digitally-mediated society. Using the examples of a reflective blogging exercise and an assignment built in the Second Life virtual world, I demonstrate how the tutor's emphasis on providing feedback in multimodal form, alongside more conventional print-based approaches, inspired and emboldened students towards the creation of apt and sophisticated coursework. At the same time, the crafting of multimodal feedback carries resource implications and can sit uncomfortably with some deep-rooted assumptions around language-based representations of academic knowledge. This article should be seen in the context of a growing pedagogic and institutional interest in feedback around assessment, alongside the emergence of new ways of communicating and consuming academic content in richly multimodal ways. In this setting, multimodality, technology, and interaction refers to the digitally-mediated dialogue that takes place between the student and tutor around assessment.

Teacher Education during the COVID-19 Lockdown: Insights from a Formative Intervention Approach Involving Online Feedback

“…Additionally, findings suggest that they are closely related. In our data, the use of diverse modes of conveying feedback, in which information was represented complementarily, was a particular target of students' appraisal, confirming what research has been indicating regarding the importance of considering multimodal communication in digitally mediated feedback [32].…”

“…Online feedback demands the use of complimentary modes of meaning-making that might enhance feedback as interpersonal communication [2,57], with a special emphasis on strategies that may compensate for the lack of embodied meaningmaking. This would be clearly in line with Lamb's argument that: "When a convincing part of the rationale for placing greater emphasis on multimodality within assessment and feedback has been the need to align approaches with the evolving nature of meaning-making practices across society and education, we should recognise that a considerable amount of what takes places in schools, colleges, and universities remains deeply committed to the language in its various forms" [32] (p. 14).…”

“…Students tend to use self-regulated learning strategies more frequently in online contexts than in hybrid environments [31]. In addition, attention has been given to the supporting and boosting role that multimodal feedback can have on learning, especially when it is "imaginative, critical, and in-tune with our increasingly digitally-mediated society" [32] (p. 17). One of the main challenges related to online feedback is associated with real-time elaborated evaluation and the quality of the information that is offered about students' work [33,34].…”

The voice, text, and the visual as semiotic companions: an analysis of the materiality and meaning potential of multimodal screen feedback

“…Although uncomfortable conversations are part and parcel of teacher education feedback practices, tutors still need to be mindful of how they position themselves in the process and convey feedforward messages, particularly as they are unable to gauge the reaction of the recipient in real time. The value of the feedback, therefore, does not simply rest on its medium but how it is incorporated into existing feedback and assessment strategies (Lamb, 2018).…”

Critique and the video production classroom: providing students the skills to navigate new media literacies

“…Although specific feedback was useful early in production, young composers were more likely to take up more abstract, global suggestions during the production stage. In general, students benefit from feedback at earlier stages, are more likely to make revisions when receiving feedback at formative stages and are often reluctant to film after they've done so much work (Motley, 2017;Lamb, 2018;Campbell and Feldman, 2017). In out-of-school spaces and arts-based programs, critique is often woven into the cyclical, iterative production process (Hetland et al, 2013).…”