Assessment Dialogues Between Teachers and Students Using e-Writing Portfolios

Abstract: Findings from feedback research consistently indicate that teachers and students hold different perceptions towards written feedback (WF) in writing (Orsmond & Merry, 2011). In terms of feedback focuses, teachers usually burn the midnight oil marking students’ grammatical errors while students prefer teachers’ feedback to be more holistic which, in addition to language, is comprised of content and organization. Regarding the effectiveness of feedback, teachers’ primary concern is feed back on students’ performance in a specific task (how well students performed in the writing task); nevertheless, studies have found that students are more inclined towards the feed up (how students can do better in the writing task) and feed forward (how students can do better in other writing tasks) functions of written feedback (Hattie & Timperley, 2007). Due to the lack of alignment between the students’ and teachers’ perceptions of WF, students express frustration when comprehending teachers’ WF (Williams & Kane, 2008) and they find it hard to act on the comments (Gibbs, 2006, as cited in Carless, Salter, Yang, & Lam, 2011). To help students better understand teachers’ WF and in an attempt to transform my WF practice from a “one-way information transmission” to “an ongoing dialogic approach” of feedback (Mulliner & Tucker, 2015, p. 2), I engage my students in assessment dialogues (Carless, 2006) using an online platform called Google Document (hereafter Google Doc). According to Carless, assessment dialogue refers to discussions between teachers and students about the assessment process with an aim to “help students to clarify ‘the rules of the game,’ the assumptions known to lecturers but less transparent to students” (p. 230).