Online learning under COVID-19: re-examining the prominence of video-based and text-based feedback

During the COVID-19 pandemic, higher education institutions have been faced with a rapid shift to remote digital learning across courses. The resultant proliferation of online learning in traditional, hybrid, and distance higher education courses has enhanced the possibilities for technology-supported student-centered learning design. The prominence of feedback in student-centered teaching could be argued in two ways: (1) instructed learning is based on interaction and communication in which the teacher provides personalized information to students about their progress and (2) feedback is oriented towards students’ improvements, which in turn guides student engagement. Therefore, feedback addressing students’ personal needs integrates multiple dimensions and profoundly influences learning. In response to J. Borup, R. E. West, and R. Thomas (2015)’s article The Impact of Text Versus Video Communication on Instructor Feedback in Blended Courses we discusses the efforts to prepare higher education for online learning. During the pandemic, teachers rapidly faced requirements for providing feedback to students remotely and performing all teaching roles online. The authors in this section build a strong argument that feedback with a supportive function is essential in a time when students and teacher are working remotely. They argued for personalized learning requiring feedback at different points of the learning process that utilizes a range of feedback functions and forms and, most of all, employs contextualization and a situated approach.