I'm helping an instructor with this question... What is the best way to provide feedback to a student regarding how a post was just rated by the instructor? Right now, it appears the only place to provide this feedback is directly in the Moodle gradebook. Is there a better way to provide student feedback about a forum post rating?
Thanks, Randy
Well, I would have thought the two obvious places for feedback on grading of a forum post are
a) linked with the forum post - direct inline with the post itself, but at the same time, in most cases probably a bad idea because its also public for everyone else in the forum
b) linked with the grade - which means in the gradebook, along with all other grades and feedback
Personally i would have thought that any other alternative just adds an extra degree of complexity. Of course the tutor could always private message or email the student, or even talk to them face to face, but that still takes it away from the normal workflows associated with either grades or forums and probably makes it harder to track or record.
What I would like to see is a field next to the rating for grading feedback. Like the rating drop-down list, the field would only appear to instructors and the feedback would get sent along with the rating to the gradebook. Right now, you would need to leave the rating, then go to the gradebook to do the feedback...or do it all in the gradebook which means makes rating in the forum useless.
Interesting ideas. I have always replied to a student's post when I want to give feedback, but I can see how some teachers might want to provide private feedback. Check the Moodle Tracker system to see if this type of "feature enhancement" has ever been suggested. If not, consider adding it. It seems to me that a comment textbox could appear next to the rating. Maybe this could be a course or system configurable feature.