Effective feedback to students on their progress (formative feedback) is key to their development as learners, and audio/video feedback can offer a number of benefits over the traditional written form.
It can be more detailed and supportive than text, with a stronger sense of personal connection with the tutor - the voice being a richer communication tool in terms of inflection and emotion.
Audio feedback can also be listened to repeatedly, and anywhere – using learners' portable devices such as their phones. Staff have also found it an enjoyable, fulfilling and flexible process for marking work.
Audio feedback was largely pioneered and promoted by Bob Rotheram via the JISC-funded 'Sounds Good' project at Leeds Metropolitan University (2008). The evidence and guidance produced by this project, fed into a Learning and Teaching Fellowship project.
Since then, there has been gradual but significant uptake of audio/video feedback at the university, and the response from students receiving audio feedback is very encouraging. The role of QED is to encourage and support the proliferation of audio (and video) feedback at the university via the sharing of case studies, online resources, training and promotion of the Feedback/Capture room. If you're interested in learning more about Audio/Video feedback, please contact Ade Clark - aclark@cardiffmet.ac.uk
