Providing Feedback

Nearly a month into the semester, I can already tell what is the most time-consuming part of teaching an online course: providing student feedback. Each week, my Creative Writing students post something, either a new creative work or a general literary analysis. Anything they post, of course, should have some personal feedback attached to that, at least according to my philosophy. Anyway, I've been using a discussion rubric to give them feedback on their work, as well as give them a scale that evaluates their feedback to each other. My reading of their work and providing this feedback takes a great deal of time.

Heading into the third week, my 'Creative Writing' class has now completed its first assignment and done so on the course online software system eLearn/Moodle. I made it a goal to provide feedback to every student for this first assignment. This way, students have a grade already provided on their work, and they know that I'm watching and evaluating them intently. For a class of twenty students, though, five students did not turn in the first assignment; four of those students haven't bothered even to log in to the course software system. I gave them a negative evaluation, needless to say. Otherwise, I found that the first assignment, one that included an audio lecture that students listened to, was a successful one.