Here we go. We're in business! Working hard with my three teachers: So far, they have shared with me their thoughts and histories through baseline interviews; they have allowed me access to previous student work; I have met with them to introduce them to what we know about language learning and the roles and forms of feedback.

All the students in the three classes have filled in a questionnaire focusing on how they see the role of feedback, what their attitudes to it are, and what they would actually prefer. Four students from each class have also helped me understand their answers better through a focus group interview.

After deciding that the best program to work with, i.e. the one that best had the options needed to support quality feedback (judged on MANY parameters!) we have spent hours together adapting the program and working with establishing the categories each teacher wanted and needed to accommodate their general practice.

The teachers have also had a first go at working with the program in returning a paper to the students - and all involved needed to learn how to manage. I won't be able to say anything definitive about the potential benefits for a long time.... but it's very interesting to observe and record the work.

The interactions of four students from each class with the program in their revising their work have been screen recorded. This can show me something about their practice. 

Each class will work with at least 3 more papers in the course of the fall and spring.

I have now started working my way into methods I want to employ for my project. Additionally, I have sent out questionnaires to 2,000+ Danish schools in the hope that around 200 lower-secondary (7th-9th grade) teachers will answer a few questions on their feedback practices.

The questionnaire was to serve two purposes: First, it was to show me whether my general, fundamental hypothesis held water: That Danish teachers do not use dedicated ICT programs in their feedback practices to any major degree. Secondly, I needed some kind of basis for selecting three teachers that I could work on with in the project.

It turned out that almost 300 teachers ended up answering my questions 👍. Not only did they answer, they also very kindly provided me with tons of free text answers that have helped me understand their motives, rationales, and ways of working a little better. Thank you very much, all who answered! To the best of my knowledge, no one has ever asked Danish teachers these questions before AND gotten so many answers. 

I have a feeling that one reason why teachers bothered to spend time on giving me so much to work with could be that marking papers is something that teachers do alone, often at night/at home/dreading "the pile" of papers... This is not necessarily something that teachers discuss a lot, or something where they share their practices.

This might also provide one explanation for why one third of the responding teachers would like to receive news from the project - and why another third would actually be interested in being involved in the project in some way.

However, I have now selected the three teachers I need. I owe great thanks to those of you who volunteered, but I had to take some practical precautions in order not to spend too much time "on the road", but I spoke to quite few of you. 😄

I hope to be able to write a little something on the questionnaire results before I finish my entire project...