Too Much Or Not Enough?

Over the last few weeks I've been leaving some pretty extensive comments on assignments for some of my students to try to help them out in completing other assignments. However, over the last two weeks I found myself questioning if the feedback that I left online is more than enough or if I'm not leaving enough feedback that my students understand. I've found myself questioning if I should reduce the length of feedback and let my students know I'd be willing to have conversations with them about how to improve in the future. The last two weeks during 2140 recitation, I noticed a handful of students who had completely ignored feedback left on assignments leading up to the editorial speeches. In some ways I felt kind of defeated but in others I was trying to figure out how to adjust the feedback for these students in the future. I looked back on Dannels's comments in 8 Essential Questions Teachers Ask about the amount of feedback to give to students to find some perspective.

According to Dannels (2015, p.188), the quantity of feedback is not the important thing, the important thing is leaving feedback which helps students to develop their learning. So, how do I leave feedback that is effective for the students who chose no to utilize it leading up to an assignment worth a significant part of their grade? I want all of my students to feel as though they are being given feedback that is helpful, but when the feedback is ignored I have a hard time trying to find the happy middle ground where all my students feel like they are being given information that makes sense. One of the solutions Dannels offers is to have students write out a paragraph summary for how they incorporated feedback into their assignments, and it could be useful but I have some concerns-specifically with students who are just in class to pass.

If a student is just taking the class with the aim of getting a passing grade how important is it to provide lengthy feedback? I want to be consistent with grading and feedback, and what seems to help most of my engaged students is having a lot of feedback to go off of. Do I change they way I present feedback to my students who don't pay attention? Do those students need more or less feedback? The issue in some ways feels like I'm dealing with a different situation entirely.

The experience is different with the 1010 classes I'm teaching since so far I feel like most of the constructive feedback I've given is on their written assignments whereas in class I've been trying to build up community within the class to get students feeling comfortable enough to engage more than through activities that do not require speaking. My 1010 students are beginning to open up more and ask questions which allows me to give more verbal feedback that could be useful to the class as a whole so I see that as a success. I think the saving grace thing here is that most of my students seem to be making strides and are more willing to interact which is really my main concern and I feel like throughout the semester I have been encouraging and recognizing the improvement, especially through nonverbals.

In general I feel pretty good about where my students are going, but I also feel like I have to find a way to manage my expectations differently for certain students which is something I'm not a fan of doing. If I were to to describe the feeling it is somewhere between feeling like I've got it together (and this is the more prevalent feeling) and feeling like I'm going to be dealing with panic later on; the feeling is more mother hen than chicken little.