From student input to institution-wide adoption at the University of Arizona

Introducing the Student Advisory Board

At the University of Arizona, the decision-making process for adopting new instructional technologies is anything but ordinary. Rather than relying solely on administrative or faculty input, the university has pioneered a unique approach that includes students in a central role in the evaluation and selection process. Enter the Student Advisory Board for Instructional Technology (SABIT) - a group of undergraduate and graduate students participating in the university's technology initiatives.

The SABIT contains 10 students, eight of whom are Student Representatives and two of whom are Student Government Representatives. These students are elected on campus by other students and can also serve on the Graduate Council. 

According to Samantha, the SABIT meets with her team regularly (twice a semester, four times a year) to provide invaluable feedback to the associate vice provost on the technologies being considered for implementation. By giving students a direct voice in decision-making, the University of Arizona wants to ensure that the tools and platforms they adopt align with the learners' needs and preferences.

Incorporating the Quality Matters Standards into the Evaluation Process

The University Center for Assessment, Teaching, and Technology at UArizona partners with Quality Matters (QM) to underscore its mission of providing excellence in online education by creating courses that meet and exceed the QM Standards. So far, QM has been established to support instructors and course developers in building a high-quality learning experience for students. However, the team at UArizona soon realized the importance of including student voices in the quality assurance process. 

This is where Michelle Vonie, Instructional Designer and QM Coordinator, and her team decided to establish the connection between the Student Advisory Board and the QM program. According to Michelle, the QM standards were used as the key framework to evaluate the tools that will enter the main evaluation by the SABIT. This is done through a 4-step process: 

• Introduce tools to the SABIT: The students on the board were introduced to different peer review technologies that will be piloted within the U of A, and then went to explore these tools throughout the semester. 
• Request for feedback: Before the Student Advisory Board sessions, Michelle and her team ran surveys where students evaluated the tools based on QM standards. 
• Analyze the data: The survey responses were analyzed to identify the key themes that emerged
• Apply the findings: The identified themes were used to inform course design, instructors' training, technology inventory building, and more. 

Piloting FeedbackFruits with the Student Advisory Board

Considering the importance of peer-to-peer interactions and the current outdated peer assessment tool, the U of A team sees the need for a new technological solution that can support and enhance the peer review process. That’s why FeedbackFruits Peer Review entered the evaluation process with a pilot running from August 2023 to May 2024. Samantha said: 

"The year that FeedbackFruits came in as a pilot application, it came in alongside another peer review program (Kritik), and we ended up going with FeedbackFruits."

By aligning the technology selection process with the Quality Matters framework and the expressed needs of the student body, the U of A team ensured that the chosen tools would truly serve the best interests of the learners.

‍“Samantha gets a tonne of applications for pilots, so we do a lot of ‘weeding’ before it even gets to the student advisory board. Like that they can focus on the  technology we’ve identified as best serving their needs based on what they've communicated to us in the past.” – Michelle Vonie

The Student Advisory Board was a critical party for evaluation and feedback during the FeedbackFruits pilot. Below is an overview of how the SABIT was involved in evaluating FeedbackFruits Peer Review: 

• Asynchronous session – Introduction to FeedbackFruits: The students went to the FeedbackFruits website, where they explored the company and its solutions
• Synchronous session – Board meeting & Sandbox activity: The instructors created a peer review activity with a detailed feedback rubric and a self-reflection step. During the board meeting, students went through the peer review activity by reviewing their peers’ work, giving comments based on the given criteria, and reflecting on the activity. 
• Synchronous session – Reflection and evaluation: After the board meeting, students proceeded to write a reflection on their experiences of using the tool and filled out a brief qualitative and quantitative survey.

The evaluation with SABIT ran alongside the pilot period, with 4 meetings in September, November, February, and April. This hands-on approach allowed the students to experience the peer review process firsthand, navigating through the various features and functionalities of the feedback fruits platform. As they engaged with the tool, the students provided valuable insights and feedback, which would ultimately shape the university's decision to move forward with the technology.

The student surveys and reflections revealed that peer-to-peer interaction was an area that students felt was incredibly important, but also an area where the university was lacking in terms of institutionally supported technologies. This insight directly informed the decision to prioritize peer interaction-focused technologies, such as FeedbackFruits, for the upcoming pilot season.

As Michelle remarked: 

‍“That is one of the ways that FeedbackFruits rose to the top. Before all the discussions of adopting Brightspace Next, we were already prioritizing FeedbackFruits based on  students' comments to us. There were multiple factors obviously, but we wound up going with FeedbackFruits for the pilot rather than the other peer feedback technology.”

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So what else stood out as the key factors that persuaded the Student Advisory Board to choose FeedbackFruits Peer Review? 

Streamlining the Student Experience: Seamless Integration and Ease of Use are key

One of the key factors that stood out to the Student Advisory Board was the seamless integration and user experience of the FeedbackFruits platform. 

The student advisors compared their experience using Google Docs to FeedbackFruits Peer Review and noted significant differences in usability and engagement. While Google Docs allowed for collaborative work, the process was described as more “disconnected, asynchronous and detached”, lacking a sense of connection. 

In contrast, FeedbackFruits Peer Review offered a streamlined, intuitive platform that facilitated a more cohesive and interactive experience. Students highlighted how easy it was to pair with a peer, clearly identify the content they were reviewing, articulate their feedback, and access their peers’ evaluations. This level of clarity and efficiency in FeedbackFruits was unprecedented in their experience, fostering a more integrated and supportive review process.

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As Samantha explains, 

"Students had talked about doing similar things in Google Docs, but even that was a more asynchronous, more detached and distanced experience. Whereas with FeedbackFruits, the verbal conversation of the Student Advisory Board went to how easy it was for me to get paired with a fellow student, know exactly what I was reading, know exactly what I was saying to them, and then also know exactly where to get my feedback from my peers which is never in their experience something that has been so streamlined."

This level of integration and ease of use was a significant factor in the students' positive perception of the feedback fruits tool. In contrast, the university's previous peer review solution, Voice Thread, was described as "old" and "antiquated," with limited accessibility updates and a lack of creative use due to its long-standing presence on campus.

Samantha and Michelle shared some of the students' responses and reflections regarding the use of FeedbackFruits Peer Review:

‍“The visually appealing interface of Feedback Fruits immediately caught my attention, making the tool engaging and user-friendly. This aspect is crucial in creating a positive user experience and encouraging consistent use. Equally important is the tool's ability to provide instant access to peers' work via Google Docs links. Given the tight balancing act between academic responsibilities and personal life commitments, any delays in accessing necessary materials can disrupt my carefully planned schedule, thereby affecting both my academic performance and personal well-being.”‍

‍“FeedbackFruits is very easy to navigate. It was pretty straightforward and figuring out the tech part did not take much time. Also, I really liked the clarity of the rubric items and how elaborate they can be to provide feedback. Most of the time, in my experience, the peers in the peer-review process might provide very general and broad feedback such as “nice job”, “What do you mean here?” if not scaffolded well by the instructor or the tool. Feedback Fruits can guide the students on how to provide to-the-point, constructive, and detailed feedback that can enhance the learning process.”

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In an online learning environment, building an engaging learning community where learners can easily exchange thoughts and ideas is the key to active engagement and motivation. Any tool that makes it easy for students to engage in peer-to-peer interactions asynchronously; therefore, is key to building active learning and motivation. 

Using FeedbackFruits to Achieve QM Standards

The insights gathered from the SABIT evaluation were extremely valuable for instructors when using pedagogical tools, particularly the FeedbackFruits solutions to design QM-compliant courses. 

As the UArizona team dived deeper into the evaluation of FeedbackFruits, two key areas within the QM Standards emerged as priorities: accessibility, alignment with learning objectives, and learner engagement.

Ease of Use, Accessibility, and Support with FeedbackFruits 

Accessibility was a major concern for the students, who had previously encountered issues with the accessibility of the university's existing peer review tool (VoiceThread). Michelle explains: 

‍"We did have a set of questions about accessibility, and that was part of the student data that we collected after they had explored FeedbackFruits and the support pages, and then actually using the software itself."

FeedbackFruits, on the other hand, offers a smooth user interface, which is carefully designed to streamline learning activities and reduce complexity for teachers and students, all with single sign-on (SSO), authentication, and sync of grade books, groups, and calendars. 

Instructors and learners also received instant, frequent, and effective support from the FeedbackFruits team and the faculty, via 24/5 online support, help articles, and informative workshops. Such responsive support has been key to motivating the teachers to adopt FeedbackFruits. As Michelle remarked: 

“We often struggle with making sure that instructors and students understand the purpose of the tools. There were targeted trainings and compilations of resources available. However, since adopting FeedbackFruits, it sounds like that is going well.”

FeedbackFruits’ reputation has already spread like wildfire, especially outside of the writing program, according to Michelle. “I know our team has supported a lot of new instructors signing up for it this semester, so I can only imagine it's going to increase. They are motivated to make this work.”

Support Diverse Learning Outcomes

Additionally, the university recognized the importance of aligning the chosen technology with the learning objectives of various courses and programs. As Michelle noted: 

"In the future, if we were to do this again, I think it would be good to look into further how we can incorporate that and see how well could this technology support a variety of different learning objectives, and whether are there ways that it could be implemented better than others in terms of actually serving those outcomes."

FeedbackFruits accommodates a variety of pedagogical approaches (e.g. Team-Based Learning, Flipped Classroom, Project-Based Learning, etc.), allowing instructors to implement learning journeys that correspond to their learning goals. 

Furthermore, instructors can materialize the learning goals and desired competencies within FeedbackFruits in the form of feedback rubrics, which helps better track and measure student progress towards achieving these goals.

Authentic assessment can be one of the best ways to nurture lifelong skills and effectively measure learning goals, as emphasized by Michelle. The U of A team used FeedbackFruits solutions to support creating different authentic activities, such as peer assessment, group evaluation, team projects, and more. 

Enhance active learning for learner engagement

According to Michelle, faculties can easily optimize the learning activities to stimulate meaningful, multi-level interactions and continuous engagement.

“We focused primarily on peer-to-peer, but another big element of that is also instructor-to-student interaction as well, which FeedbackFruit does help facilitate.”

Here are some ways FeedbackFruits have been used to create peer-to-peer, teacher-student, and student-materials interactions. 

• Interactive Study Materials let students engage with the study materials, at the same time communicating with peers and instructors through annotated questions and discussion points. 
• Peer Review encouraged reflective and critical thinking as students commented on each other’s deliverables and exchanged thoughts. 
• Discussion on Work and Discussion on Topic supported the facilitation of engaging online forums where students actively exchange ideas and perspectives. 

Due to FeedbackFruits' positive experience, more and more instructors at U of A are interested in using the tool to create high-quality courses that align with the AM standards. 

‍“Every week, there are tens and tens of new people, and then we have a support team that immediately, as soon as they receive that request, turns on [FeedbackFruits].” – Samantha Maxwell

Due to FeedbackFruits’ ease of use and multifunctional features, Michelle forecasted “having FeedbackFruits automatically on by default for all courses”. To support the transition from Voice Thread (the existing peer review tool) to FeedbackFruits, the U of A team assigned a FeedbackFruits lead to help every instructor “rebuild their materials in FeedbackFruits”.

Prioritizing accessibility and alignment, the U of A team ensures that the instructional technologies they adopt not only meet the needs of the students but also support the broader educational goals of the institution.

Fostering a Culture of Collaboration and Continuous Improvement

The University of Arizona's approach to instructional technology decision-making is a testament to the power of collaboration and continuous improvement. As Samantha and Michelle work closely with the Student Advisory Board, they can gather valuable insights and feedback that inform the university's technology adoption process.

Moreover, the university's commitment to sharing its experiences with other institutions further strengthens the collaborative nature of this initiative. As Samantha remarks, “Michelle and I have given conference presentations now to other schools on how to implement their own Student Advisory Board."‍

By sharing its best practices and lessons learned, the University of Arizona is not only improving its instructional technology landscape but also inspiring other institutions to empower their students and make more informed decisions.

Towards long-term partnership: Adopting FeedbackFruits throughout the entire campus

Following the successful pilot, the University of Arizona decided to enter into a full partnership with FeedbackFruits.  

The upcoming fall and spring semesters will be crucial for the U of A team to experiment with novel pedagogical approaches using the FeedbackFruits Teaching & Learning System. 

Melody J. Buckner, Associate Vice Provost at the University of Arizona commented on the partnership with FeedbackFruits: 

‍“Introducing Feedback Fruits as one of our enterprise digital learning applications represents our commitment to fostering a collaborative and engaging learning environment. By leveraging these pedagogical tools, we aim to empower faculty with innovative methods for interactive teaching, peer assessment, and personalized feedback, all aligned with our mission to enhance the student learning experience at the University of Arizona.”

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The Student Advisory Board for Instructional Technology at U of A is an inspiring example of how student-centric decision-making can revolutionize the way universities approach technology adoption. By giving students a direct voice in the evaluation and selection process, the university is ensuring that the tools and platforms they implement truly meet the needs and preferences of the learners themselves.

Through the FeedbackFruits pilot and the ongoing collaboration with the Student Advisory Board, the University of Arizona has demonstrated a deep commitment to accessibility, alignment, and continuous improvement. This approach not only benefits the students on their campus but also serves as a model for other institutions seeking to empower their learners and make more informed technology decisions.

We at FeedbackFruits are honored to be a collaborative partner of U of A, an institution that supports faculties in innovating pedagogy and reaching their educational goals. We expect great outcomes from this partnership and are eager to keep contributing to the institution’s mission. 

Thank you so much for sharing your insights with us, Samantha and Michelle. We loved learning about your thoughtful perspectives on lifelong skills, along with your deep insights on technology evaluation and adoption.