Use of Blackboard discussions to analyse video case study feedback

Origin

Bristol Medical School
Health and Life Sciences

Tools used

Blackboard

Contact

Asim Ali

Objectives

  1. To allow students to practice critiquing feedback in a Mini-CEX context.
  2. To prepare students for a summative assessed online discussion.
  3. To develop skills in applying feedback models to authentic clinical education settings.

Background

The Assessment and Evaluation unit is largely run asynchronously, with only two days of face-to-face teaching. This year the unit lost a day of teaching time making it essential to maximise remaining time and acknowledge student time outside of the class.

A formative discussion was created on Blackboard to help students critique feedback, which was directly linked to a summative discussion assessment. This was also designed to give students some applied learning before they were asked to do a role play in the classroom.

What was done

After learning about different feedback models, students were allocated to one of eight groups which were set up within the course. Students were given a ten-minute video case scenario to watch in which a supervising doctor provided verbal feedback to a student. The discussion prompt then gave students clear instructions, asking them to identify strengths and weaknesses in the feedback, reflect on how it applies to learning theory and state how the feedback could be improved. They afterwards had to reply to another student’s post, stating what was good about it and giving constructive advice for feedback.

Clear links were made to the summative discussion that took place later on, so students could see the benefits of taking part.

This activity prepared students for an assessed task analysing feedback they had given or received during their teaching practice and relating it to a feedback model. This task had specific word counts and clear details on what should be included and came with a rubric. It was also made clear that it was not compulsory to reply to peers, though it was encouraged.

Outcomes

Asim reported that twenty students took part in the formative task out of one hundred, while all students took part on the assessed task. Those who did take part provided positive feedback on the exercise. A positive correlation could also be seen between how well they did in their formative and summative discussion boards. It was not possible to tell from feedback whether students felt this helped with the role play.

For external reasons it will not be possible to use this for summative assessments again for this programme, but Asim noted that will be used for diploma level students.

Lessons learnt and advice for others

  • All discussions should be clearly aligned to the assessment at the end.
  • It is important to clearly instil for both tutors and students the role of the tutor as moderator. Students need clear expectations on what the reply will contain and how often they should expect it.
  • Provide students time estimates for long each part of the activity will take to complete.
  • If replying to their peers’ posts is not made a marked element, then most students will not do this. This was not included to avoid overloading students with instructions. Students are more likely to provide unbiased constructive feedback for formative activities since this will not affect their peers’ marks. Always make peer feedback a formative style of activity rather than a summative style.