Today, digital learning tools are used to provide learners with effective progress updates and personalize learning experiences both in guided and self-directed settings. How can we design feedback that is informative and inclusive for all differently-abled learners, and ensures equitable opportunities in digital spaces?
Feedback on learning progress
In digital learning settings, feedback and progress updates can be personalized by instructors and peers, and automated through computer generated progress reports and assessments. The quality of feedback design in digital learning depends on its timeliness, relevance, and accessibility to all differently-abled students, ensuring that everyone can continue to develop academically and professionally.
Inclusive feedback design
UDL-informed feedback design supports learners in monitoring their own progress effectively and to use that information to guide their own effort and practice in learning. It emphasizes the importance of providing multiple and varied forms of feedback, ensuring it is accessible, customizable and directly related to the learning goals (Enhance capacity for monitoring progress | UDL Guidelines). By implementing UDL principles educators can create supportive and equitable educational experiences where all learners feel valued and can participate meaningfully.
Practice:
Option 1: Review the design elements of feedback.
1. Select a course in your setting that you have access to, whether you teach it or learn in it.
2. Identify several examples of feedback used in your setting: what are the different ways in which learners are informed about their progress.
3. Select one example of the feedback and review its design according to the UDL quality standards for equity and inclusivity.
Share your observations writing a comment below.
________________________
Option 2: Design a group activity, implementing UDL-informed feedback methods.
1. Select a topic for a learning activity. Define the learning objectives: ensure these are specific, measurable, and demonstrable.
2. Plan Learning Activities. Consider implementing:
- Multiple Means of Engagement:Â Provide learners with choices for engaging with the material in multiple ways. For example, learners can access material both in a linear pathway (e.g., scheduled modules) and a non-linear pathway (e.g., choosing specific tasks to create an individual learning path).
- Multiple Means of Representation:Â Allow learners to select among various digital formats to engage with the material (e.g., text articles, audio podcasts, video lectures).
- Multiple Means of Action and Expression:Â Offer learners choices in how they demonstrate their acquired knowledge (e.g., written reports, presentations, creative projects). Provide flexible assessment options and opportunities for reflection on their progress.
  Group Activity:
- Form Groups: establish a clear grouping mechanism.
- Collaborative Tools: Use collaborative tools like Google Docs, Slack, or MS Teams to situate location for the activity and project flow.
- Group Tasks: formulate goals, rules and responsibilities, ensuring that everyone contributes to the project.
  Peer Review Method:
- Peer Review Process: completed individually or by groups, providing reflections and feedback according to a rubric guide or evaluation criteria, focusing on strengths and areas for improvement.
- Feedback Exchange: establish timeline for completion and exchange of the feedback.
- Reflection: establish the timeframe for the feedback responses and demonstration of improved versions. Encourage learners to reflect on the feedback received and make necessary revisions to their projects.
3. Write the Guidelines:
- What: Learners are expected to complete a project on the topic.
- Where: The activity will take place digitally via LMS (e.g., Moodle).
- How: The duration of the activity is two weeks, and it is instructor-facilitated, or self-directed.
- Quality Criteria:Â Explain the quality criteria, such as the main points to be included in the project, the word count, and the rubric for assessment. Specify how results will be assessed (e.g., grades assigned for project quality, participation in discussions).
4. Implement:Â Publish the activity for open access online (e.g., in Google Classroom or WordPress). Include the guidelines for learners to complete the activity.
Share the URL address of the activity with the description of the activity’s learning objectives. Add your message as a comment to this page.
Examples:
Feedback and progress updates designs for digital spaces
- Real-time instructor feedback during synchronous activities: personalized insights and guidance from educators, tailored to individual learner needs. These are immediate responses during seminars, information sessions, brain-storm activities, allowing learners to understand their performance instantly.
- Peer feedback:Â asynchronous activity which may include accumulating comments and suggestions from fellow learners, fostering a collaborative learning environment.
- Self-assessment:Â providing learners with rubrics to evaluate their results and design interactive knowledge check exercises (H5P tools) with automated feedback. These tools allow learners to assess their own progress and understanding, promoting self-reflection and autonomy.
- Progress reports are computer-generated summaries of completed exercises and other types of performance, often used in self-directed digital learning settings. They also can be created by instructors in a guided learning setting and include regular summaries of learner achievements and areas for improvement, often provided at set intervals by an instructor.
Equitable and inclusive feedback: quality criteria
Accessibility ensuring that all learners can access the content. Examples: Providing captions for videos to support learners with hearing impairments. Designing high contrast displays, readable fonts, contrast color palette and including alt text descriptions for images and files attachments.
Cultural sensitivity and peer collaboration require incorporating diverse perspectives and examples in feedback, avoiding exclusionary or biased language, and fostering a collaborative environment where learners can share feedback and support each other. Example: encouraging group projects where learners from different backgrounds can contribute their unique perspectives.
Transparency means clearly communicating the criteria and standards used for assessments and feedback, helping learners understand how their performance is evaluated and what they need to improve. Example: sharing detailed rubrics and examples of successful work to clarify expectations.
Regular updates involve providing consistent and timely feedback to keep learners informed about their progress, enabling them to self-regulate and adjust their learning strategies accordingly. Example: providing learners with a schedule of the feedback and assessments for the duration of the course.
Using the UDL principle of multiple means of action and expression involves offering different ways for learners to show what they know, which helps everyone to base on their strengths or preferences. Example: offering students to demonstrate their learning submitting either a written essay, a video presentation, or an infographic for their final project.
Resources:
Top 10 UDL Tips for Designing Engaging Learning Environments
Enhance capacity for monitoring progress | UDL Guidelines Multiple and varied forms of feedback are essential to support all learnersâ opportunities to succeed.
Implementing Student Peer Review – as a Feedback Method and Learning Progress Indicator. University of Waterloo guidelines on how to teach students to to respectfully review ideas: highlighting strengths, providing evidence, asking clarifying questions.
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