Hear from Engineering Prof. Harry Toups

Transcript

In unit operations laboratory, instructors give feedback on each and every formal communications deliverable the students submit. This comes in many forms at various times. Oral feedback on the draft of the oral presentation structure during our day three informal oral review. Written and, if necessary, oral feedback on how effectively the experimental plan has been written on day four. Extensive written feedback on the draft preparatory report written feedback on the final report and oral and written feedback on individual student portal reports.

One strategy I employ is to generate just-in-time, nearly immediate feedback on a key portion of each student's teams preparatory report the experimental plan portion. Then delivering the remaining feedback on the completely assessed deliverable later. A typical student error is to write a less than adequately detailed plan of work. While this represents a communications failure and I'll explain why in my feedback to them, it is more than likely also represents a poorly thought out plan for work. Providing immediate feedback addresses both these missteps and allows me the instructor to use the Swiss cheese approach to work my way through the hundreds of pages of reports that have just hit my digital desk.