Leading the way in online feedback with EDHEC Business School

Challenges

The ability to give and receive feedback is an essential skill in all walks of life. This holds true especially for the MBA students of Prof. Milner’s Leadership courses at EDHEC business school. “Giving and receiving feedback is vital for learning in my view, so I always think about new ways to incorporate and practice this skill set in my classes.” notes Prof. Milner. To develop leadership skills, students engage in coaching conversations (as coach and coachee). Recording and uploading videos of these sessions, students watch and give feedback on each other’s performances. This used to take place using a variety of platforms such as YouTube alongside native tools inside the Blackboard LMS.

“Giving and receiving feedback is vital for learning in my view, so I always think about new ways to incorporate and practice this skill set in my classes.”

‍

However, with limited contact hours and the need for flexible course setups in the era of hybrid and online education, building these interpersonal skills came with added challenges and the need for expert guidance. Educators at EDHEC had already used a variety of technologies and tools such as Peergrade, to try to facilitate feedback between students and from professors with mixed successes. After many experiments, they still sought to implement a system which was, according to instructional designer Claudia Carrone, “more user-friendly; more engaging for students”.‍

Ensuring students reach their learning goals also requires that they are engaged with the course. Even for executive students, the combination of time constraints, limited opportunities for collaboration, and inflexible feedback systems, can be a challenge for motivation and attention. Innovation and technology can be of use, but are themselves time-consuming pursuits, resource-intensive, and often require trial-and-error. As Claudia notes, instructional design departments such as EDHEC’s PILab “... need support, someone to listen to our needs, to help bring down our ideas to earth, and give shape to our pedagogical objectives.”

Solutions

In close collaboration, Claudia and the PILab work with professors to gain deep understanding of course design needs, implement appropriate technological support, and improve learning outcomes. With the right technological support for each pedagogical approach, classes like  Prof. Milner’s ‘Leadership Coaching’ and ‘Management and Leadership’ were enriched with robust feedback and analytics systems. “Claudia helped set it up for me once, and then it was easy to re-use”, remarked Prof. Milner, referring to Peer Review, a tool which is now fundamental in students’ feedback-processing assignments throughout these courses. 

Students’ videos, given and received feedback and ratings, and the assessment rubric, are centralised within Peer Review. “Based on my research and practical experiences working with leaders, I created a catalog of fundamental leadership skills and abilities which I then adapted for the Peer Review”, Prof. Milner says. Feedback is given on criteria such as empathy and other fundamental coaching skills and abilities. This feedback can then be referred back to by students and instructors, the feedback acts as an additional learning opportunity for the students.  

"Based on my research and practical experiences working with leaders, I created a catalog of fundamental leadership skills and abilities which I then adapted for the Peer Review.” – Professor Milner

‍

Setup

Step 1: Students individually upload their video with Peer Review, acting as a coach for two other colleagues to review

Step 2: Students use a rubric with scale ratings to give anonymous feedback ratings and comments to two peers’ videos, 

Step 3: Work, submission, and feedback process is repeated several times through the course

Step 4: Instructor determines final grade.

‍

Outcomes

Finding the fitting tooling to support Prof. Milner’s teaching and learning proved to be about more than features and functions. The co-creation of a technological solution to any educational setting requires flexibility and responsiveness from the tool provider, as well as a grounding in the underlying pedagogy. “The customer support is amazing and that’s what’s really important,” notes Prof. Milner. ‍

“We gave the feedback to you, it went in the backlog and now it's implemented. I’ve had to set up complicated activities, and there’s always somebody available from FeedbackFruits to help with the specifics.” 

‍

Overall, the structure and essence of the course remained centered on feedback and growth, while the design of the course evolved toward reaching its full potential “Before, it was much more complicated. The format used to be the same, but we needed lots of support from the PILab” This ultimately led to students getting more involved and taking charge of their own learning journeys. “I saw that students were more engaged when the tools were more user friendly. You implemented features that made my life easier”. 

‍

More food for thought

Prof. Milner’s YouTube channel contains a wealth of information for growing and emerging leaders, including the essential skills of Giving feedback and Receiving feedback.