10 reasons why educators love FeedbackFruits

Nhi Nguyen
Rebecca LeBoeuf
Rebecca LeBoeuf
|
July 13, 2022
Table of Contents

There has been a surge in the use of FeedbackFruits over the past years, with over 100 partner institutions worldwide using our solutions to generate more than 3 million learning activities.

To try to understand this explosion in adoption, we asked our users - from educational leaders to instructors and instructional designers - on their motivations for using FeedbackFruits. From these responses, we were able to summarize the top 10 reasons why educators call us “the perfect missing piece for any faculty’s educational puzzle”.  

For more information about our solutions, this detailed guide will walk you through all 14 tools, their functions and pedagogical values.

Download the article

This framework will provide faculty members with a holistic view to evaluate and decide on the most suited pedaogogical tools.
DOWNLOAD NOW
Join Rotterdam School of Management to explore the best practices for implementing CBE and discover the new FeedbackFruits Competency-Based Assessment solution.
REGISTER NOW

1. Seamless integration with the LMSs

The very first factor mentioned by almost every educator is none other than our smooth API and LTI 1.3 integrations inside LMSs  such as Canvas, Blackboard, Moodle, Brightspace, and others. This translates to students and faculty being able to learn with FeedbackFruits without making extra accounts or even leaving their LMS. It also allows for automatic synchronization of groups, grades, and deadlines with the native gradebooks and calendars, saving faculty time manually generating new groups, exporting and uploading grades, or reassigning assignment deadlines. Read how Boston University and Georgia State University recently shared exactly why they loved the ease of integration.  

“What was our solution? FeedbackFruits Peer Review tool, where students could work individually and in teams with auto-grading of the assignment in the LMS Gradebook.” - Denise Kreiger, Digital Learning Designer, Boston University

“The faculty don't have to do any calculations or add up scores or grades or anything, it will take care of all of that.” – Mustafa Elsawy, Georgia State University

2. Faculties and Students user-friendliness

The streamlined, uniform interface across all tools allows teachers to master the activity set-up within seconds. From writing instructions and guidelines to deciding on assessment grades, each step can be easily configured for any use case. Teachers decide on how many submissions are required and in which format (image, video, document); configure deadlines and extensions; specify the number of peers, groups, or team members each student will review; and much more. Tony Leisen, Instructional Design Manager at Carlson School of Management spoke highly of FeedbackFruits user-friendliness:

“It was doing exactly what we wanted to achieve, making everything easier for IDs and instructors, teaching assistants (TAs), and students. Just all around, it was a good experience. It builds out all the activities we need and makes it easy for everyone.”

Dr. Michelle Steinhilb at Central Michigan University also praised the ease of using FeedbackFruits Team Based Learning tool:

“What I love about the tool is it is very easy. When you log in, you already see the iRAT and tRAT layout. All you have to do is to click start and create the questions.”  

For students, the smooth experience using the tools is shared. Pop-ups appearing as the activity opens for the first time, show quick guides for completing the assignments.

While completing the peer and group reviews, students can see the feedback rubric with detailed explanations of criteria; receive feedback prompts; and even reuse the comments they have previously given. Once these reviews are finished, students can access a dashboard detailing their received feedback (how was their performance rated by their peers, and which comments were given). Furthermore, the tools allow this feedback to be downloaded for in depth analysis or included in a portfolio. By streamlining the entire feedback process, the tool helps guide students to deliver quality, constructive feedback, and use this to adjust and improve their performance.

Explore how students experience the tools through our Student View series.

3. Collaboration options to vary student review process

To encourage collaboration at different levels, teachers can configure the ways in which students submit work and review each other in FeedbackFruits. The assignment can be completed in individual or groups, with students reviewing a randomly-assigned peer, their group members, or someone outside their teams. All five collaboration options are explained in this article.

Figure 1. Collaboration options

4. Customizable grading

Grading is undoubtedly an important part of most assessment tasks, as it informs students of their performance and teachers of what adjustments need to be made. That’s why grading should give an objective, holistic overview of learners’ progress throughout the activity. FeedbackFruits offers the option to customize the grading criteria and weighting, with teachers specifying the points received for completing each activity step, such as leaving a minimum number of review comments, or engaging in a certain number of discussions. With this grade weighting per step transparent for students, increased motivation and higher participation is often seen as a result.

Read more about configurable grading.

5. Optimal functionalities to optimize the feedback process

Educators absolutely love FeedbackFruits peer/group assessment tools for their many functionalities that support the feedback process - something many of us struggle with. Here are some of the top picks:

Feedback Anonymity allows students to give comments anonymously under fruity pseudonyms. This is to provide a safe, comfortable environment to exchange “honest, sincere, and constructive feedback”, to quote Mustafa Elsawy

Automated Feedback Coach generates suggestions or tips for students on how to give feedback, using Artificial Intelligence. This feature is now available in Group Member Evaluation and will expand to other tools in the future.

Feedback Criteria setup, available in our feedback tools,  enables teachers to design feedback rubrics with detailed criteria, explanations of criteria, rating scales, and descriptions of rating scales to guide students throughout the feedback process. These rubrics can also be exported and shared between faculty, and there are even template rubrics to make use of.

“I really like the flexibility when structuring the feedback. So many options, you get to structure it the way you want. I also like the fact that you're helping the students by telling them what criteria they look for. It’s a lot more organized than merely having the students write whatever they want.” – Mustafa Elsawy, Instructional Technology Specialist, Georgia State University

Figure 3. Add Participation Grading in Interactive Video

10. Access to insightful student analytics

Student analytics are absolutely essential for any institution, as they provide a picture of how students are performing, where they are compared to the desired learning outcomes. As professor Lambert Schuwirth puts it: “More data points are like more pixels, more resolution to the big picture.” Access to learning data allows not only teachers, but the institution as a whole, to gauge course effectiveness, and make timely strategic decisions.

Understanding this need, each of FeedbackFruits tools presents a detailed analytic dashboard, showcasing individual and group performance during the activity. For peer/group assessment tools, teachers can see whether all students completed the feedback process, which ratings they were given, and how they are evaluated by their team members. For discussion tools, the dashboard shows students’ participation in the discussion (how many handed in their work, the number of comments/ questions given, etc.) Teachers can also download these data in excel or csv file for more in depth analysis.

Dr. Justin Louder, Associate Vice Provost at Texas Tech University was absolutely delighted with the ability to access student data at different levels

“[The faculty] were able to talk to students that might not be as active as others... They were also able to manage and look at how students look at feedback, interacted with others, and then integrated any comments or changes.”  

This quote was taken from Dr. Louder’s presentation at inspirED 2021, in which he detailed how Texas Tech University adopted Peer Review, Interactive Video, and Interactive Audio to enhance online student engagement.

Download the article

You can download this entire article in the form of a compact brochure. Click here to save the document, and feel free to share it with your colleagues!

Conclusion

Though some institutions consider technology to be the “driver and enabler” of higher education transformation, FeedbackFruits believes that not technology, but pedagogy, is what fuels this change. That’s why we innovate with not just the best tools and features to help faculties, but also by building unique relationships and understandings with each of our partner institutions. And as you can guess from the name, we really welcome feedback and suggestions from educators who share our mission to achieve the new education. 

Are you a FeedbackFruits user? Which features do you find to be most useful and what are you still hoping to see from us? Let us know so that we can continue to bring more values to our solutions. 

Tool evaluation is a crucial step in the process of technology adoption, yet it is always complex and challenging for institutions. To help ease this headache, we compiled “A comprehensive guide to choose the best teaching tools”, which presents an 8-step framework to evaluate and decide on the appropriate teaching tools. The ebook is available for free.

Share on social media

More from FeedbackFruits tips series

Technology Tips
|
23/3/2023

5 ways to stimulate collaboration with FeedbackFruits Team Based Learning

5 ways optimize the team-based learning process with the support of technology

Technology Tips
|
28/10/2022

Develop critical thinking with Discussion on Work | FeedbackFruits tips

Check out 4 ways to design asynchronous discussions that stimulate critical thinking skills

Technology Tips
|
28/10/2022

Stimulate continuous engagement with Interactive Document | FeedbackFruits tips

Discover how to maintain continuous student engagement at every stage of your course using Interactive Document

Most popular blog posts

Student Success
|
Nov 16, 2023

Promote active learning in different instructional modes

Explore how to best implement active learning strategies with deep understanding of different modalities

Industry News
|
Sep 11, 2023

Meet the new FeedbackFruits partners | Summer 2023 Highlights

FeedbackFruits announces partnerships with many institutions worldwide over the past 4 months

Student Success
|
Aug 23, 2023

Competency-based education (CBE) in higher education: A landscape overview

An overview of the state of competency-based education (CBE) in higher education around the world

Subscribe for educational articles, practical pedagogical tips & tricks, event updates, invites and more. Unsubscribe anytime.

Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.

Filling out this form means you agree to our Privacy Policy.