Giving Feedback to Students in Seesaw

In this time of distance learning, giving feedback to students has become a bit different because much of it has to be done remotely.  There is no one-to-one personal conferencing. And families may be having a challenging time at home navigating all the online assignments.  It has become vital to give quick but meaningful feedback that students can see easily and make changes if necessary without a struggle. Enter Seesaw.

Seesaw has become a vital tool during school closures and it has some very quick and meaningful ways to give feedback on student work. Here 5 of those ways.

 

Commenting A Post

The quick and easy way to give feedback in Seesaw is to you the commenting tool.  At the bottom of every post is a place for you to add a comment.  Giving feedback on a students post can be done in text or in the form of an audio comment.

Marking Up An Item Using The Pen Tool

The pen tool is often used as a way for students to write answers or draw pictures, but the teacher can also use it to mark up a student’s work for feedback.  Do do this, first click or tap the more button (3 dots) in the bottom right corner of the post.

From the menu that pops up, select edit item.

From here the creative canvas appears and teachers can choose the pen tool to underline, circle, and emphasise parts of student posts.  The pen color can be changed at any time to distinguish each underlined part.

Marking Up An Item Using The Highlighter Tool

Using th highlighter tool helps make words or sentences stand out.  Again, the teacher can use different colors to emphasize different aspects of the student’s post.

Using the Label Tool To Make Digital Sticky Notes

Using the label tool to make post-its is a great visual way to give a message, instructions, or even praise to your students.  By clicking or tapping the label tool, teachers can type a message and change the style and color to make it pop out.  Move it anywhere that will make it easy for the student to see.

Using Digital Stickers

You can make digital stickers or save bitmojis from outside of Seesaw and then import them into the post to give compliments and praise for completed work. You can create stickers with PowerPoint, Google Slides, Adobe spark Post, bitmoji, etc. Save the images in a folder for easy access and then choose the photo tool in seesaw.  Upload the image you want from the folder and resize it to a good size similar to how the pot-its are resized.  It can be placed in a spot where the student can see it best.  What a great way to give encouragement or praise to students for a job well done.

After all the markups and comments are complete, teachers just click the green check and students will see the posts with additions.  Depending on the type of post, students can make their changes right there or create a new one.  If it is an activity they have responded too, then can re-submit there post.

Giving feedback is easy with the tools that Seesaw has built-in.  It gives the teacher a powerful way to make comments, underline and highlight words, and using the label tool or digital stickers can make feedback stand out for students to see. Remember that you can make these changes at anytime before or after approval, when in draft form or when it’s a completed activity.

Now get out there and Seesaw!