In the framework of the BLEARN AUTONOMY project (2020-2022), the University of Minho has developed some innovative strategies to improve teacher feedback in higher education and enhance students’ autonomy skills. A digital reflective portfolio has been implemented as an evaluable continuous learning activity and it was applied transversally to different undergraduate and graduate subjects, all of them related to the learning and teaching of Languages, Culture and Translation.

This reflective portfolio allows to better understand the student’s profile in a hybrid learning context (face-to-face and distance) and to show their development in areas related to metacognition (such as self-regulation of learning and critical thinking).

In order to send teacher feedback throughout the semester, a Rubric has been designed and piloted by the UMINHO team. It collects student performance in different cognitive dimensions (taking into account Bloom’s 1956 taxonomy and other revisions such as Churches, 2009 and Anderson and Krathwol, 2001).

Preliminary results presented in TECHling show that this learning and research instrument: (1) constitutes a valid, reliable and feasible tool not only to assess learning products, but also to send clear and meaningful feedback to students; (2) adequately captures the impact of the comments made by teachers and that these have been meaningful for the learning process; and, (3), reflects the existence of heterogeneous student profiles in terms of self-regulation capacity (learning monitoring).

Dono López, Pedro
Lerma Sanchis, María Dolores
Pazos-Justo, Carlos
Cea Álvarez, Ana María

Image from The Open University