Page 54 - Reimagining Higher Education : Case Studies On Designing For Inclusion, Equity, And Access In The Buka Project

P. V. Arumugam & J. S. Emmanuel · Course learning re-design, capacity building and

learner engagement - Wawasan Open University (WOU), Malaysia

units. Each unit then aligned with a tutorial session. To put the scale of the learning
materials into perspective, a typical textbook may have about twenty chapters. If

one were to divide those twenty chapters into four-chapter groups, one would get

five groups. These groups are known as units in WOU. Therefore, each unit in a
WOU module is substantial and would typically have about two to four subunits.

Multimodal Assessment Feedback Pilot

Student Feedback is important, and it should always be given in a kind and
constructive manner. Being mean or harsh can damage relationships and hinder

the academic growth of students. Feedback is considered to be a main source of

learning and a key aspect of teaching (Poulos & Mahony, 2008; Rowe & Wood,
2008). Studies show that there is a positive correlation between educator feedback

and student performance (Bijami et al., 2016). It helps students to evaluate their

own learning process and identify gaps relating to their learning (Cavalcanti et al.,
2020), which results in better student achievement.

As it is common to provide written feedback on assessments, we decided to
experiment with something less common, multimodal feedback. Especially in the

context of ODL, providing good quality feedback becomes a challenge for educators
(Cavalcanti et al., 2020), because the weaknesses of the more traditional format of

written feedback seem to become more explicit and feedback in its ideal, as a

continuing two-way communication (Dowden et al., 2013) is more likely to fail.
Respectively, educators feel disappointed and angry (Yu et al., 2021), since giving

feedback is often perceived as a demanding activity that is “di cult, tense, and

time-consuming” (Mahfoodh, 2017, p. 53). Based on these remarks, feedback
proves to be an area for continued focus.

Multimodal feedback is feedback provided in di erent modalities: text,
audio, video, etc. For the purpose of this experiment, we asked tutors to provide

written feedback on student assessments and run the text through the
open-source speech synthesis system, FreeTTS. An MP3 file is generated, which is

then uploaded together with the graded assignments. Students then receive both

written and audio feedback on their assignments through the generation and
upload of an MP3 file using FreeTTS. As many of our students access content on

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