Student Success Week will take place from October 28th to November 1st with the theme Moving Feedback Forward. Turnitin along with its sponsors invite papers or presentation topics for its first virtual conference on the implications of feedback on student success. In particular, we are interested in papers or presentations that discuss the impact of using web-based tools to provide feedback and how these approaches improve student success.

We welcome papers that, for example, detail best practices in the classroom (traditional, hybrid, and online), share research on strategies for providing effective feedback using technology, and discuss the discrete student outcomes of using web-based approaches to support student learning.

Proposals should be 300 words or less, but feel free to include links to additional information, previously published work, or examples. If you are interested in presenting, please submit your presentation proposal for any of our six topical areas:

Submit Your Proposal

If your proposal is accepted, we will invite you to participate in one of our daily virtual conference sessions the week of October 28th to November 1st. The sessions will be 45 minutes in length and be delivered via a web conferencing platform. Sessions will be held from 10:00 - 10:45am PST. Other proposals will be considered for guest blogs and papers that will be made available for download.

For more information on the topical areas:

Critical Writing

Writing is an effective method to engage critical thought and deepen understanding. Furthermore, writing can be a heuristic especially when employed across the disciplines. Sessions in this category might address how writing in various disciplines can enhance student learning and success from writing assignment design, writing across the curriculum approaches, data-driven research on the effectiveness of writing in the disciplines to improve student learning, etc.

Reasonable & Responsible Feedback

Feedback is perhaps the most valuable element to effective teaching and learning. However, it can be quite overwhelming for both instructor and student: instructors often feel the need to comment on all issues present in student work, while students can feel overwhelmed with the feedback, not knowing how to address necessary improvements. Sessions in this category might address how instructors can provide ample, yet balanced feedback, offer suggestions for helping students prioritize needed improvements, define timeliness for feedback, etc.

Measuring Student Success

The push toward student success requires educators to find proven methods for measuring student learning. Sessions in this category might share innovative or unique approaches for identifying and measuring student success or address the challenges of trying to measure student progress and meet accountability standards.

Designing Assessments

From exams to essays, to formative Q and As, assessment provides us a way to measure student success. Assessment does not simply mean state-standardized testing. Sessions in this category might delve into aspects of assessment design or methodology or approaches to thinking about and developing assessments that help to scaffold student learning.

Student Learning Outcomes

A high priority among educators today, SLOs have become fundamental to course design. Effective student learning outcomes set educational goals for students and instructors and require quantifiable evidence to demonstrate what learning is taking place. Assessing and evaluating teaching effectiveness is key to enhancing student learning. Sessions in this category should address proven methods of assessing student learning outcomes, strategies for outcomes development and implementation of SLOs, examples of effective outcomes/course design within the disciplines, etc.

Effective Forms/Methods of Feedback

Beyond the red ink on a stack of papers or student conferences, feedback comes in many forms. Whether that feedback takes shape via rubrics, or increasingly through web-enabled tools like voice or audio comments, we are finding more ways to reach our students. Sessions in this category might share different and effective approaches for providing feedback to students in ways that will enhance their engagement.