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How final grades are assigned to products in process based courses, such as English composition, is a mystifying event for many students. Much of what readers and writers do are cognitive processes, and therefore invisible, so the need for feedback making these processes visible is essential for student success. At the end of this presentation, attendees will have learned how the use of Microsoft Word’s Insert Comment feature and use of Captivate and Camtasia software can engage students, build community, and enable opportunities for more in depth feedback to encourage student success.

Often “feedback” from faculty to students has translated into communication of an end outcome. . . the grade. However, in many fields that emphasize process over product, such as English composition, the end outcome is useless if students view feedback only as a final grade. Instead, students need to understand how the interaction between the writer and reader shape the process of writing. What further complicates this process for students is the “invisible” nature of a reader, since most often reading occurs in isolation from the writer. Four instructors from the University of Cincinnati will present methods for providing more detailed and effective feedback to make such invisible processes visible using a widely accessible tool in Microsoft Word and the more specialized tools Captivate and Camtasia.
The panel will begin by discussing how the use of Microsoft Word can be used to initiate and sustain dialogue with students on assignments throughout the course. Discussion will center on using the Insert Comment feature to allow both instructor and student to write comments in the side margins in order to discuss the process behind the product of the assignment itself. Such dialogues, when sustained throughout the course, provide new points of access to enter the academic community as a true participant rather than mere observer. Engaging students in dialogue not only enables them to gain a voice in a new community, but also offers the encouragement and opportunity to explore ideas in depth in order to increase the likelihood of overall success in the course.
The panel will then shift to how the use of other software tools, Captivate and Camtasia, can be used in conjunction with Word or as stand-alone programs for providing in-depth individual feedback to students. These programs allow the instructor to go beyond written comments by providing stronger audio visual components. Unlike receiving a standard document with written dialogue in the side margins, this software captures the instructor’s screen movements and audio narration of their feedback. While accomplishing the goals of community development and more detailed feedback, these alternatives allow instructors to meet the needs of audio and visual learners. The purpose of this presentation is to provide participants an understanding of the rationale behind the use of these tools, examples of their implementation in classroom settings, and explanations of their impact on student learning. It is not the intention of presenters to provide step-by-step tutorials for navigation of these software programs, but instead to shed light on how their use can engage students, build community, and enable opportunities for more in depth feedback to encourage student success.

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