Using Explain Everything for Feedback

The current trend in education has been moving away from the pass or fail mentality. It is no longer enough to give a grade or a brief comment at the end of an assessment task and feel that the task is done. One thing that has been something that I have found to be something of a weakness in my teaching is giving effective feedback, the sort of feedback where students will take note of it and act upon it. Feedback helps provide direction so that they can move forward and grow. It should also affirm our students towards the best achievement that they have within them, while also continuing to seek their engagement in the learning process. Communicating feedback requires a greater effort to reach our students and meet their needs.

At a recent teach meet, the App "Explain Everything" was used as a way of providing feedback to students. The way that the app was used was to annotate the work of the student, while recording the thoughts of the teacher as they were annotating. This sort of feedback helps students to see the strengths and weaknesses of their work, while also having it explained to them.

It has been app that I had not previously used but it prompted me to look to using it, particularly in looking at giving students feedback on a recent project that we have been working on.The way that I have used this app is to upload the assessment Checklist to the app. While recording I ticked the boxes and explained why I was ticking them. The next step is to upload these into student files on Google Drive, which are then shared with each of the students.

While this is not the only way that Explain Everything can be used, as it is an app that would lend itself to many applications in the classroom, it is useful to provide individual feedback to students. My hope is that it will be one more way to help give students the feedback needed to help them grow in their education.

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