Reports Need Red Comments
By Lee Han-na, Student Editor
How many students got personal comments on their reports by professors last semester? Many students said they had no chance to analyze their strengths and weaknesses in order to improve their learning abilities, such as report writing. Have you ever felt disappointed when you did not receive professors’ feedback on your assignment? “I never got the feedback on my assignment from professors. I couldn’t improve my report writing ability because I don’t know my weakness. I want to receive professors’ feedback and improve report writing ability,” said Hong Seong-eun (Junior, Dept. of Applied Bioscience & Biotechnology).
Assignment feedback is an important issue, not only at CNU, but also at other universities. According to a survey carried out in 2005 by the College of Liberal Arts at Yonsei University whose purpose was to investigate the rate of its professors’ feedback on their students, 2 out of 214 students got detailed feedback, 51 students received simple comments and the other students did not have any communication with professors. What do you think of this survey’s results? What are the reasons that many professors did not give feedback on their students’ assignments?
Professor’s Feedback Issue
We are quick to blame professors on this matter as follows: Korean professors are so lazy that they do not like to check students’ reports or presentations, or they have an interest only in their theses. These thoughts, however, are wrong because Korean professors have difficulties doing sincere and instant feedback on students’ activities like their reports. One of the difficulties is that there is a lot of classes with over 60 students.
Though the number of grand scale classes is different according to the characteristics of Colleges, departments and lectures, it takes up about 60% of all classes in Colleges of Business Administration and Colleges of Law. Moreover, they feel difficulties in devoting their time to students’ assignments because professors do not only teach students, but should conduct research in their departments. Therefore, it is actually very hard for professors to check students’ assignments.
Particularly in the case of grand scale classes, they cannot provide feedback to numerous students. “In the case of Major Course Centered on Essay Writing (MCCEW), most professors feel a tremendous burden in having to do feedback because it takes a lot of time. So, we suggest some alternative plans, but the problem would not be solved easily,” said Kim Hyeon-jeong, Researcher of Writing Education Division in the Education Development Research Institute.
In spite of these difficulties, it is reported that professors in charge of the MCCEW do feedback well. The MCCEW, which started in the second semester of 2006, stresses essay writing in major classes in order to improve students’ critical thinking and problem solving ability, and professors are also advised to do feedback on students. The result of the MCCEW was great. According to its resulting report, in this class, professors gave 5.45 reports and did 4.82 feedback per a report on the average. And 72.8~90.9% professors among 11 professors and 57.6~64.4% among 132 students who participated in MCCEW thought it helped students’ basic scholastic ability, such as problem solving ability, expression skills, critical thinking, among others. One hundred percent of professors and 82.5% of students also answered feedback thought it helped to improve writing skills.
Educational Effects of Their Feedback
As you see above, professors’ feedback on assignments has several positive effects on improving students’ learning ability. First, their feedback informs students of their shortcomings. The simple score marked on your returned assignment cannot be an indication of the reports. It is not sufficient to know what students’ reports lack just by looking at the score.
As professors wrote assignment feedback detailed with comments, students can identify and correct weak points of their reports by themselves. Thanks to the feedback, students can do better on their next reports. “When students study, they generally have a willingness that they are eager to improve their studies. Feedback encourages students to acknowledge their faults and never make the some errors again,” said Ryu, Jee-heon, professor in the Dept. of Education.
Second, feedback makes students put more effort to write reports thoroughly because of the rationality that professors might check their reports in greater detail. For this reason, students’ wish to plagiarize or buy someone’s report on the Internet report market when they write out their reports could be diminished. They cannot help but write by examining related books or websites one by one for themselves.
“I have become aware of my errors through feedback. And, I do my best doing my reports more sincerely because professors check my reports in great detail in order to give me feedback. It would be probably very hard for them to give feedback to each student. Nevertheless, they did it. I really thank my professors,” said Na Go-woon (Junior, Dept. of English Lang. & Lit.).
Feasible Feedback System Needed
As mentioned above, professors’ feedback is one of the more effective teaching and learning methods for making students’ academic achievements far more improved. All the members of CNU should make an effort to stimulate the feedback system and raise education quality at CNU.
Professors should try their best to do feedback on students’ assignments and students should have a positive attitude toward getting feedback from professors. Furthermore, the CNU Administration should provide a feasible and efficient system to encourage professors’ feedback comments on students’ academic performance.
If all CNU students, faculty, and staff do their best to make an easier process to promote many kinds of feedback between professors and students, CNU students’ learning abilities will be more improved and their competitiveness increased. Moreover, CNU could be named one of Korea’s Top five universities and one of the Top 100 universities in the world by 2020.