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Watch the video and respond with what terrifies you the most about video teaching!

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Pear Deck

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The fastest way to transform presentations into classroom conversations

Imagine if you could engage every student in your class, every day. What if you could instantly see who's confused and who's ready for more? That's the power of Pear Deck. While Pear Deck has always worked with Google Apps for Education, now teachers at schools using Microsoft Office 365 apps like PowerPoint Online and Teams can add the magic of formative assessments and interactive questions to their classroom experience.

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Pear Deck for Microsoft makes it effortless for educators to add interactive, formative assessments to their presentations and launch directly from Teams.

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How To Document for Making a VidGrid Video of a PPT Presentation

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Shuttered classrooms. Empty offices. Canceled conferences. With schools, universities, institutions, and other organizations closing or urging employees to stay home to counter the spread of the coronavirus, thousands and thousands of people are now working remotely.

For some, that may be a relatively simple matter of logging in and getting to work. But what if you are an educator, or a manager who typically presents to your board in person, or a sales representative who usually makes in-person pitches?

It likely means that, for the foreseeable future, video conferencing and live streaming programs, such as Skype, Google Hangout, Zoom, and GoToMeeting, will be your go-to. If you are not familiar with the format, nor hopeful that you can project the kind of dynamism of an in-person presentation, you could be facing a challenge.

You are not alone in your concerns. A recent New York Times article noted that students and instructors - faced with the prospect of more online learning - have described the courses as "improvisational and primitive." Marilynn Johnson, a history professor at Boston College, was quoted as saying: "I feel like I'm teaching out to the void."

While you may not be able to "read the room" as easily as if you were there, we have 10 tips on how to hold the attention of your audience, even if they can't see you and you can't see them.

10 Ways to Be a Great Virtual Presenter

1. Get Technical

One of the best ways to feel more secure and confident in your presentation is to set yourself up so that you look and sound good, whether on-camera or off. There are four areas to consider:
Your online connection
You'll want a secure, fast, and strong Internet connection whether or not you are filming yourself or doing an audio-only presentation. However, a strong digital link is even more important for an on-camera presentation since high-quality video takes up a lot of bandwidth. Take a moment to run a speed test or arrange for a wired connection (a DSL line, for instance) rather than a wireless one.

Ken Molay, the founder of the consulting firm Webinar Success, works with companies and professionals to create and deliver effective and compelling webinars. He blogs at The Webinar Blog. He says he will always trust wires more than wireless signals, which can have dropouts. He adds: "They can have interference. You can lose battery power on a Bluetooth headset. All of these sorts of things you just can't control. I want to have as much control as possible."
Your audio
By and large, the mic in your computer should cut it, but if you suspect you'll be doing these remote lectures, presentations, product pitches, conferences, or business meetings for more than a couple weeks, you may want to consider purchasing an external mic, such as a lavalier microphone, a freestanding mic, or even a headset - particularly one that is not too obtrusive on camera. (Molay suggests a small whip mounted head set that won't be overemphasized on camera.)
Your camera
Most people will use the camera in their laptops, which mostly works. If you are a frequent presenter, you might want to consider investing in a quality external webcam, which offers a far better picture. Still, people are more forgiving of less-than-ideal video than they are of poor audio. So, if cost is an issue, or you don't have time to take a deep online dive into camera options, supplement the audio first

2. Be Animated

It may be difficult to generate enthusiasm right now, given the anxiety and concerns over the coronavirus. But students still need expert instruction. Clients are still in the market for quality products. Employees are looking for answers about the future. Conference attendees are seeking expert opinions on myriad topics. Your words as a virtual presenter should reflect the excitement you have about your material. If you can't evidence interest in your material, how do you expect your audience to do the same?

3. Vary your voice

As with in-person presentations, how soft, loud, high, low, slow, or fast you go can adjust the mood of your presentation and the meaning of your words. You can vary your intensity, modulate your pitch, and alter your pace to make your words far more expressive. Assess your baseline to discover the volume and pace that best serves as your "norm," and work from there to explore the full range of your vocal delivery.

4. Use effective body language.

Effective eye contact, gestures, and facial expressions can make you appear confident and relaxed, which leads to a more compelling presentation. If you are on camera, gestures and facial expressions become even more important. But, even if you are an off-camera virtual presenter, movement can help you to deliver a more dynamic presence. Here are some specific tips:

Gestures

Go ahead and move. Researchers have found that gesturing not only adds emphasis and verve to your words but also can help you to better remember what you want to say.

Still, try not to fidget or flail with your hands or arms, or make quick movements in and out of frame - depending on the speed of your connection, your actions could come off as jerky or choppy.

Don't get too close to the camera. As Molay notes, "Near-field camera is a danger zone for anybody. Anything that tends to move toward the camera, whether it is your head or whether it is your hands, gives you that 3-D house of horror effect."

Expressions

Go ahead and smile. Research has shown that people can "hear" you smile, so don't let the lack of a camera stop you from expressing yourself. It's OK to smile on camera, too, if the subject matter warrants it.

Posture

You may not mean it to, but if you are leaning back in your chair with your shoulders slumped, it is possible you look less than professional. Conversely, if you are leaning in, shoulders scrunched, you may look too earnest. Find the happy medium - sit up tall, try not to scrunch your shoulders and rest your arms or hands comfortable on the table or desk before you.

Eye contact

Make sure your camera is at eye level, which may mean putting boxes, books, or any other object that won't slip under your laptop to raise the camera. (Otherwise, the audience is looking right up your nose.)

Try to avoid continuous small or darting glances toward your monitor. That's easier said than done, given how instinctive it is to want to see the screen or check out the monitor to see how you appear. Simple eye movements, however, tend to become overexaggerated the closer your face is to the camera. Practice a steady, relaxed gaze on the lens.

5. Visualize Your Content

Visuals can engage and reengage your audience throughout your talk. They become particularly important if you are not on camera.

Here's what Molay has to say:

"Static visuals don't hold attention. They can't. If you put up a big dense slide, people get tired of it. They are not going to read through all the information. If you put up something that's easy and simplistic, that's not going to hold attention for a long time either. Think about over-the-shoulder graphics on a TV news program. They're quick. They support and lend a little emphasis to what the presenter saying, but they don't distract the audience from the actual words that are being used. So, visuals shouldn't stand in for the presenter. Visuals are there to support what is being said without distracting from what is being said."

Here are some other tips:

Use more slides and change them frequently. A slide a minute is a general rule of thumb, but not everyone gets there, nor is it applicable to every presentation.

In general, you should avoid bullet and text heavy slides. The second strike is reading verbatim what it is your audience sees on the screen. Your visuals should enhance your words, not duplicate them.

Try to avoid excessive sameness on your slides. Yes, each slide may have a different concept, but if it is stylistically rendered in the same way, it can result in a visual monotone, which, like vocal monotone, does not exactly engage your audience.

6. Engage your audience.

Polls, surveys, quizzes ... these all help to engage your audience. You can ask something simple, such as:

"I will be moving to the next topic, but before I do that, are there any comments or questions about the topic we just covered?"

Or, you can delve deeper and get a better sense if one of your main points needs more or less time. Perhaps you are talking to prospective clients. You could say:

"Before I move on, I want to hear what is your most pressing challenge, so I can make sure to cover our services and benefits that may help you to address it."

Molay says it comes down to a balancing act:

"Some speakers do a monologue for 45-50 minutes and then say we have a little time for questions, only acknowledging the audience at the end. Or, they constantly interrupt themselves to respond to questions and comments. I've seen people do it in mid-word. You want to find a happy medium using planned interaction breaks at various points in the session."

A note on timing: If you do plan on taking questions or comments, be clear with your audience as to how you intend to frame your talk. Are you taking comments and questions throughout? Are you going to alert them to breaks and pauses during which you will address their concerns or questions? Or, are you going to wait until the end? As with in-person presentations, it's best to give the audience a road map at the start of their journey. Not only do they know what to expect, but any needling concerns they have as to when they can speak up won't become one more distraction you have to counter.

7. Personalize your delivery

Think of the one person you want to reach and how your message best benefits them. Molay urges virtual presenters to refrain from blanket welcomes ( "I'd like to welcome all you guys.") and reach out to one person - if you reach one person, you can reach almost everyone else, too. ( "I'd like to welcome you to our webinar.")

Here are a few other tips:

If possible, identify the person commenting on your response. It not only personalizes the message but keeps the audience on their toes. We are typically more alert if we think we might be called upon or mentioned by name. "Is she going to call on me? I better start concentrating on what she is saying."

So, yes, don't be afraid to quiz your audience. You can set them up for the win with a statement such as this: "Jane, I'd like to ask you a question about...."

8. Power of the Pause

While we are not advising long breaks of silence, an occasional absence of words can be a good thing. In other words, after a steady stream of your words, a break in the action has the power to reengage your audience if their attention has strayed. But there is a right way to pause - otherwise you could leave your audience thinking you are experiencing technical difficulties (particularly during an audio-only webinar), or that you perhaps have lost your train of thought.

If you are off-camera, Molay notes it is particularly important to set up the pause, since your audience can't see why you happen to have gone silent. Still, it's best not to leave the audience with unexplained and unexpected pauses.

He notes:

"A pause is a good thing, just let your audience know that it is coming. And give them something to do while you are paused. You might say, 'I am going to take a pause so you can think about this point for a moment.' Or, 'I'm going to take a break for just a moment and let that sink in.' Now you have given permission and people know why you are going silent and it works beautifully."

9. Position Yourself for Success

The environment in which you conduct your remote presentation can enhance or detract from your ability to be a more dynamic and engaging virtual presenter. While the following tips are most applicable to presenters who will be on camera, anyone can benefit from creating a professional and uncluttered space from which to do their work.

It begins with ... your setup.

Make sure your computer is elevated and your camera is at eye level

Properly frame yourself so that you are not a tiny head in a huge frame, nor are you so close to the lens that your face and gestures are overexaggerated.

Center yourself (mentally and physically). Set yourself up for success that eases stress and anxiety. That includes centering yourself in the frame so there is a sliver of space above and below your face.

Position your lighting so that you will avoid being back or side lit (or having the light come from above or below you). If it is behind you (say you are sitting in front of a window with bright light streaming in), it may appear as if you are part of the witness protection program. If it is from above or below, your face will take on shadows. Sometimes something as simple as placing two lamps on the side of your computer and cutting the overhead lights can help. There are some relatively inexpensive LED camera lights you can find online, as well.

It continues with ... your scene

Clear off your desktop and clear out cluttered, messy, and crowded bookshelves behind you. Add a few staged and tasteful objects and, viola! You've got yourself a studio.

Avoid sitting in front of a window, not just for lighting issues, but for potential distractions of what's going on beyond the glass.

Before you go live, make sure the background is not adding unwanted effects - the plant that seems to be coming out of the top of your head, for instance.

Turn off all notifications

Close apps and other programs on your computer,

Unless you are using your smartphone, turn it off and silence it.

Find a room or area where you will not be disturbed.

10. Practice

For those who are relatively new virtual presenters, remember to save time:

to test your equipment and setup

arrange your surroundings

check out how you appear on video.

If possible, do a test run. You'll quickly see if you have the right equipment and software you need and if your computer has the proper settings and preferences.

Virtual Improvement

As a virtual presenter, you can be as dynamic and captivating as you are in person. With a few adjustments, a focused approach, and commitment to keeping the energy up, you will find success in keeping your audience anything but remote.

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Coronavirus: How To Deliver a Dynamic Virtual Presentation When You Can't Go To Work | Throughline Group

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Shuttered classrooms. Empty offices. Canceled conferences. With schools, universities, institutions, and other organizations closing or urging employees to stay home to counter the spread of the coronavirus, thousands and thousands of people are now working remotely. For some, that may be a relatively simple matter of logging in and getting to work.

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Good things are happening at LCU. Just ask any student, staff member, or faculty about the University's new Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP). The QEP is a university-wide endeavor that has been designed with students at the heart of this initiative, and it is guided by the desire to equip our students for 21st century living. Students walk through our doors from a vast array of life experiences and backgrounds, and some are more prepared than others to face the challenges associated with college life. In fact, our University recognizes that students, especially in their early college years, often face significant challenges that have the potential to derail them and keep them from fulfilling their dreams of completing a college education. Some challenges that students face are beyond our control-challenges such as balancing family and/or work obligations or navigating limited financial resources. Nevertheless, many are the result of social or academic interactions that occur on a routine basis and cause students to question whether they will be able to succeed in college or even belong there in the first place.

Challenges that hinder students' success were identified during the 2016-2017 QEP topic selection process conducted by a committee of LCU faculty and staff. Consequently, a determined focus toward addressing these challenges was made a priority by the university in an effort to serve the needs of our students and strengthen the mission of the university, preparing students for lives of purpose and service. To do so we recognized that we must purposefully attend to factors that affect students' potential for success and their ability to persevere through adversity. Based on this ideal, we determined that the purpose of our QEP would be to instill and foster academic tenacity among beginning undergraduate students in order to both establish and bolster persistence.

Academic tenacity refers to mindsets and metacognitive skills that allow students to look beyond short-term concerns to longer-term or higher-order goals and then withstand challenges and setbacks to persevere toward those goals (C. Dweck, Walton, & Cohen, 2014). According to psychologist Carol Dweck and her colleagues, students who are academically tenacious feel apparent academic and social belonging, see school as relevant to their future, work hard with the ability to postpone immediate pleasures, abate intellectual or social difficulties, seek out challenges, and remain engaged over the long haul.

Important to note within this discussion is that the mindset that students have about their own intelligence or other personal attributes affects their learning, learning behaviors, and tendency to stay the course when things get difficult. According to Dweck in her book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success (2006), these mindsets refer to assumptions that students make about the malleability of personal attributes such as intelligence or morality. Some students have a fixed mindset-the belief that these traits are fixed, unchangeable entities-while others have a growth mindset-the belief that attributes such as intelligence or morality are indeed malleable and able to be changed or developed. Findings in cognitive and neurosciences fully support the second supposition. The brain is much more adaptable than we ever knew, and intelligence is certainly not fixed; it can be cultivated. In fact, contrary to popular belief, the brain does in fact change in structure and function in response to experiences throughout one's life, even into old age.

As one might expect, most students demonstrate a fixed mindset about some traits and a growth mindset about others. However, problems arise from a fixed mindset when it is linked to a student's academic development. Students with a fixed mindset are inclined to pursue performance goals rather than learning goals. In other words, they tend to worry about proving their intelligence and getting good grades, thereby preferring tasks that will verify how smart and capable they are. These students live under the assumption that they were not gifted with specific intellectual capabilities and will often say things like "I'm just not a math person," or "I can't write; it's not my thing,"- or other various comments about their perceived inabilities. When tasks become challenging or difficult, fixed mindset students often disengage or exhibit other avoidance behaviors, because they are ill-equipped to cope with failure. In contrast, students with a growth mindset both see and believe the possibilities that exist through effort. They value hard work and tend to pursue learning goals. They focus on learning new concepts as well as improving their competence. When tasks become challenging, students with a growth mindset appear to experience less anxiety, put forth greater effort, and increase their engagement in the work at hand, accepting and even enjoying the challenge. With this in mind, a goal of the QEP, therefore, is to instill a growth mindset in our students and eliminate the inaccurate beliefs and misconceptions about intelligence that hinder success.

Equally important is the realization that the development of tenacity requires more than possessing a growth mindset, students must also be equipped with a repertoire of metacognitive skills if they are going to be able to put their growth mindset to work. Broadly defined, metacognition is knowledge about learning as well as having control over one's own learning. Students who exercise metacognition are able to assess and monitor their current level of understanding, predict their own performance on various tasks, and manage learning processes that lead to understanding. Evidence from the research (Conley & French, 2014; Cury, Da Fonseca, Zahn, & Elliot, 2008; Jones, Slate, & Blake, 1995) indicates that students who hold a growth mindset tend to utilize more effective study practices and monitor their own learning. They are more likely to set learning goals, discover gaps in understanding, decide when and where to engage in learning tasks, and demonstrate efficacy in both self-assessment and study habits. Thus, it appears that growth mindset and metacognition are interdependent. Students need metacognitive skills to support a growth mindset and conversely need a growth mindset to fully employ their metacognitive skills. Accordingly, it stands to reason that metacognition has been strongly linked with improved college GPAs, college readiness, and retention (Conley & French, 2014; Lamar & Lodge, 2014; Mytkowicz, Goss, & Steinberg, 2014) making it all the more salient as we find ways to support students. Unfortunately, metacognitive acuity is often lacking in college students and must be purposefully developed if these skills are to be fully realized and leveraged to work in conjunction with a growth mindset. Developing these skills is another goal of the QEP.

And finally, in addition to developing a growth mindset in students and honing their metacognitive skills, faculty at LCU are learning how to adapt their coursework and curricula accordingly. In order to do so, faculty are studying principles of growth mindset and metacognition, utilizing practices that develop and support adaptive mindsets, and finding ways to implement assessment measures that allow for a greater capacity of learning through practice.

As you can see, this QEP is working diligently to create a campus culture that fully embraces the power of a growth mindset and fosters academic tenacity in students. The ideas that emanate from this initiative transcend academia and have far-reaching implications in all aspects of students' lives. While, it has the potential to affect personal relationships, marriages, jobs, parenting, and achievements in athletic or other extracurricular endeavors, most importantly, it has the potential to affect students' spiritual lives. As Christian educators, we are dedicated to caring for the whole student by preparing them for lives of purpose and service. For this reason, it is vitally important that we acknowledge each student as a beautiful gift from God and affirm the potential that lies within each and every one. We firmly believe that the QEP will go a long way toward contributing to that goal.

Works cited
Conley, D. T., & French, E. M. (2014). Student ownership of learning as a key component of college readiness. American Behavioral Scientist, 58(8), 1018-1034.
Cury, F., Da Fonseca, D., Zahn, I., & Elliot, A. (2008). Implicit theories and IQ test performance: A sequential mediational analysis. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 44(3), 783-791.
Dweck, C., Walton, G., & Cohen, G. (2014). Academic tenacity: Mindsets and skills that promote long-term learning. Retrieved from https://ed.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/manual/dweck-walton-cohen-2014.pdf
Dweck, C. S. (2006). Mindset: The new psychology of success. New York: Ballantine Books.
Jones, C. H., Slate, J. R., & Blake, P. C. (1995). Relationship of study skills, conceptions of intelligence, and grade level in secondary school students. Study habits inventory and Thoughts about achievement questionnaire, 79, 25-32.
Lamar, S., & Lodge, J. (2014). Making sense of how I learn: Metacognitive capital and the first year university student. International Journal of the First Year in Higher Education, 5(1), 93-105.
Mytkowicz, P., Goss, D., & Steinberg, B. (2014). Assessing metacognition as a learning outcome in a postsecondary strategic learning course. Journal of Postsecondary Education and Disability, 27(1), 51-62.

In my next blog, we will investigate the intersection of a growth mindset with Assessment for Learning and how the two are interdependent. In the meantime, here are links to relevant growth mindset literature. (Credit to Lyndsey Slaughter, LCU Education Major)

Growth Mindset Literature Bibliography
Aronson, J., Fried, C. B., & Good, C. (2002). Reducing the effects of stereotype threat on African American college students by shaping theories of intelligence. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 38, 113-125.
Barnes, N., & Fives, H. (2016). ﻿ Creating a context for a growth-focused assessment.﻿ Middle School Journal, 47(5), 30-37. doi:10.1080/00940771.216.1226638
Boaler, J. (2013). "Ability and Mathematics: The Mindset Revolution that Is Reshaping Education." FORUM: for promoting 3-19 comprehensive education 55(1): 143-152.
Chan, D. W. (2012). Life Satisfaction, Happiness, and the Growth Mindset of Healthy and Unhealthy Perfectionists Among Hong Kong Chinese Gifted Students. Roeper Review, 34, 224-233. doi:10.1080/02783193.2012.715333
Dweck, C. S. (2006). Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. New York, United States of America: Random House.
Dweck, C. S. (2010, January). Mind-Sets and Equitable Education. Principal Leadership, 26-29.
Dweck, C. S. (2012, November). Mindsets and Human Nature: Promoting Change in the Middle East, the Schoolyard, the Racial Divide, and Willpower. American Psychologist, 614-622. doi:10.1037/a0029783
Dweck, C., Walton, G., & Cohen, G. (2014). Academic Tenacity: Mindsets and skills that promote long-term learning. Retrieved from https://ed.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/manual/dweck-walton-cohen-2014.pdf
Dweck, C. S. (2015). Growth. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 85(2), 242-245.
Dweck, C. S., Chiu, C.-y., & Hong, Y.-y. (1995). Implicit Theories and Their Role in Judgments and Reactions: A World From Two Perspectives. 6(4), 267-285.
Fitzgerald, C. J., & Laurian-Fitzgerald, S. (n.d.). Helping Students Enhance Their Grit and Growth Mindsets. Journal Plus Education, 52-67.
Glenn, D. (2010). Carol Dweck's Attitude: It's not about how smart you are. The Chronicle of Higher Education, May 9. Retrieved from http://www.chronicle.com/article/Carol-Dwecks-Attitude/65405/
Hochanadel, A., & Finamore, D. (2015). Fixed And Growth Mindset In Education And How Grit Helps Students Persist In The Face of Adversity. Journal of International Education Research, 11(1), 47-50.
Kuh, G., Kinzie, J., Buckley, B., & Hayek, J. (July, 2006). What matters to student success: A review of the literature. National Symposium on Postsecondary Student Success. Symposium conducted at the meeting of National Postsecondary Education Cooperative, November 2006, Washington, D.C. Retrieved from https://nces.ed.gov/npec/pdf/kuh_team_report.pdf.
Lindsay, K., Kirby, D., Dluzewska, T., & Campbell, S. (2015). "Oh, the Places You'll Go!": Newcastle Law School's Partnership Interventions for Well-Being in First Year Law. Journal Of Learning Design, 8(2), 11-21.
Martin, A. J. (2015). Growth approaches to academic development: Research into academic trajectories and growth assessment, goals, and mindsets. The British Psychological Society, 85, 133-137.
﻿Mindset in the Classroom A National Study of K-12 Teachers.﻿ (2016). Education Week Research Center, 3-28.
Rattan, A., Savani, K., Chugh, D., & Dweck, C. S. (2015). Leveraging Mindsets to Promote Academic Achievement: Policy Recommendations. Perspectives On Psychological Science: A Journal Of The Association For Psychological Science, 10(6), 721-726. doi:10.1177/1745691615599383
VandeWalle, D. (2012, September). A Growth and Fixed Mindset Exposition of the Value of Conceptual Clarity. Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 5(3), 301-305. doi:10.1111/j.1754-9434.2012.01450.x
Yeager, D. S., & Dweck, C. S. (2012). Mindsets That Promote Resilience: When Students Believe That Personal Characteristics Can Be Developed. Educational Psychologist, 47(4), 302-314.
Yeager, D.S., Paunesky, D., Walton, G.M., and Dweck, C. (June, 2013). How can we instill productive mindsets at scale? A review of the evidence and an initial R&D agenda. Paper presented at the White House meeting on Excellence in Education: The Importance of Academic Mindsets. (This paper is a draft and cannot be quoted or cited without written permission).

As you read in my earlier post one of the most important components of Assessment for Learning includes strategies teachers and students should use to move the learning forward. Once we have made the learning targets clear and students are aware of what quality work looks like and what their goal is, we must provide activities that afford students an opportunity to learn in a manner that can produce visible evidence of mastery. This is new territory for some, and this particular blog post is not dedicated to classroom instructional strategies (coming soon) but rather what to do once the learning has begun. I cannot overstate the importance of three things: effective feedback, self- and peer-assessment, and goal setting by the students.

Let's start with feedback. There is a big difference between feedback and making observations or critiques. Consider the difference that two friends recently shared with me. Both had a problem with using a confident voice in front of colleagues and/or students. One of my friends received this "feedback" from her boss..."I don't know why your voice was so shaky and high pitched in that meeting. You sounded scared (shaking his head with bewilderment)." Contrast that with the feedback another friend received, "Ms. Jones, the instructions you gave were important and you said all the right things. However, the students couldn't really hear what you were saying. Try lowering your voice and projecting with confidence. If you want to hear someone who does a good job at this, go next door and listen to Ms. Rameriz - she's got it down." There's a big difference here - one is helpful and has the potential to promote growth and one is simply an insult with no suggestions for improvement.

The same can be said for written feedback. Feedback that only points out problems without providing something positive, and suggestions for improvement is simply criticism. It has no potential to help students grow. In fact, it is likely to discourage them from trying.

Many, many research studies have produced clear and convincing evidence that feedback is vitally important and, if done right, has the potential to significantly improve achievement. And conversely, if done wrong or neglected all together has the potential to actually harm or be detrimental to the learning. In his book, Embedded Formative Assessment, Dylan Wiliam provides a succinct summary of the research and practical strategies for providing quality feedback. I highly recommend that you invest in this book and take it to heart.

Here's the part that's really hard to swallow. According to the research, just assigning a grade to a student's work does nothing to improve learning. Students are either happy or sad (or have no feeling at all) with their grade, then they set it aside and move on. When teachers put feedback or comments on a paper along with the grade, the effect is virtually the same - there is no positive effect. However, if students receive comments only, or success/intervention feedback that has three components 1) positive praise, 2) area that needs work, and 3) how to accomplish or improve, the learning improves significantly and expeditiously.

Oh my. How do we accomplish that in a way that is practical and manageable? To do this, feedback must be provided early on, where there is time to make corrections and should be within the range of what students can act on. Ideally, it should also give students a chance to self-assess as they partner with the teacher in the learning process. Here are three practical ways to provide effective feedback:

1. When students turn in their work, if they've shown mastery or met the learning criteria, return the paper with their grade (100). If they haven't mastered the learning goal, return their paper marked with a "P" for "pending" and include success/intervention feedback written directly on their paper. It should include what they did well, what they need to work on, and how to get there. Then tell them their grade is pending until they make the necessary corrections. Assign a new due date. (I go ahead and pencil in a grade in the grade-book in case the student doesn't redo their work - but I haven't needed it as of yet). This process isn't ideal and it requires keeping up with lots of papers with varying due dates, but at least it focuses on mastery and gives the students a chance to improve.

2. Have students complete this Feedback Form and staple it to their work when they turn it in. They will have the opportunity to think about what their strengths are, as well as what they need to work on, and consider what resources they need. This helps empower students in their own learning and gives them some ownership as they partner with you in the process. Then as you assess for mastery complete the right column of the form - providing effective success/intervention feedback. Return it to the student and assign a new due date, giving students the opportunity to improve in areas that need work. If possible, give them time in class, rather than as homework, to make the improvements.

3. Use technology to your advantage to eliminate chasing papers. A popular and easy App to use is Showbie - Paperless Classroom. It can be used with iPads, iPhones, or any computer or device that has an internet connection. I'm sure there are other apps like it, but this one is so easy to use. With this app, students can electronically turn in work and you can provide feedback using digital ink, text and voice annotations right on their paper. "Papers" can go back and forth until they get it right. As part of your assignment, have students include an annotation to their work describing what they think they've done well, what needs work, and what resources they need. (Special thanks to math teacher Nikki Tekell, Frenship MS for helping me with technology and suggesting the Showbie App!)

There are many other ways to provide effective feedback but this is a start. Give it a try and see for yourself if the learning improves. As you try this in your classroom, share with us strategies that you use to make it manageable! In my next blog, I'll address the power of self- and peer-assessment and goal setting and provide concrete ways of making it happen in your classroom. A post you won't want to miss...

Check out my blog post about flipped learning at the Flipped Learning Global Initiative website! Then stay tuned to hear about practical ways you can implement formative assessment in your flipped classroom. Coming soon!

To those who attended my session at the HEFLC - welcome to my blog! Start at the beginning to journey through the world of formative assessment. Contact me if you need help! Here are the handouts I promised, along with the powerpoint.

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Have you made the shift from an emphasis on the grade to an emphasis on learning? Here are some indicators and something to think about...I would love to get your feedback. Let's add to this list!

(c) Cathy Box PhD, Lubbock Christian University, 2016

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Good things are happening at LCU. Just ask any student, staff member, or faculty about the University's new Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP). The QEP is a university-wide endeavor that has been designed with students at the heart of this initiative, and it is guided by the desire to equip our students for 21st century living.

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How could we use this for summation assessment purposes? I’m thinking about evidence portfolios. What do you think?