from Flickr: Uploaded on April 2, 2005
by [phil h∞]

Description

The track changes feature in Word is a useful tool for providing feedback to students on their written assignments. Although it requires that Microsoft Word be installed on both the student and instructor's computers, it is often not a barrier since many students are already composing their assignments using Word.

Background

Track changes is especially useful if you want to provide in-text comments or corrections to student written work. Track changes provides a simple way of providing comments and edits by making them more visible. When inserting a change or edit into a student document, the program will make the change visible by using a different colour and font style and will also stamp each edit or comment with a date, time, and name of the person who made the change.

If a student submits an assignment to you that is a Word document, you can use the track changes feature by going to Tools>Track changes.

Track changes also supports voice comments (in some versions).

Design Questions/Issues

The pedagogical considerations in using this tool ?centre on the reasons for the placement of the feedback, and the type of feedback or edits that the instructor makes. For example, while the tool allows the instructor to make lexical changes, grammatical edits, and copyediting, it is important that the instructor be able to rationalize why they are giving this type of feedback. In other words, if grammar and word choice is a criteria of evaluation (as would probably be the case in a language course) then this type of feedback is justified, and even helpful to the student.

If the instructor is providing feedback in the form of comments on specific sections of the assignment, then it can be very useful to have a tool such as track changes that allows you to insert your feedback in the relevant section, and make it clearly visible to the student. But an instructor might also choose to provide his or her comments at the end of the assignment, in which case simply using a different colour of font, or providing comments in a separate document is all that is needed.

Track changes is also useful if there are multiple people providing feedback. For example, some courses will have peer evaluation of student work before it is submitted to an instructor. Peer evaluators can insert comments or suggest changes, and the author can use the Accept or Reject Changes function. The comments function in track changes is also a useful way of facilitating a dialogue between the student and the peer or instructor evaluators, which is in line with a constructivist view of providing feedback.

Examples & Activities

This resource provides good instructions on how to use various Track changes functions, and provides some good examples.
http://www.iupui.edu/~webtrain/tutorials/editing_in_word.html#audio_comments∞

Try this excellent tutorial to become more familiar with some of the features of this tool.
http://continuinged.uml.edu/online/tutorial/word_tracking/∞


Track Changes Step by Step

A. Marking documents in Microsoft Word

Using the Edit feature

PC instructions:

1. Open the document you want to edit.
2. Go into FILE, SAVE AS, and add ‘comments’ to the title. This will save it as a different document, so you will have an unedited/original version and a version with your comments.
3. Click on TOOLS, TRACK CHANGES, HIGHLIGHT CHANGES.
4. Click on the box that says “Track changes while editing"
5. You can now add comments and delete text anywhere in the document and it will show up in red. When you delete text it will automatically cross out text that you have highlighted and deleted.
6. Email the ‘comments’ version of the assignment to the student.

Alternate Version:

1. Do steps 1 and 2 above.
2. Type your comments where needed. Highlight your comments and then change the text colour by clicking on the letter symbol and choosing a colour. You could also use the highlighter pen (located beside the letter symbol) to highlight your comments.
3. Email the ‘comments’ version of the assignment to the student.

Resources

This link will take you to a good explanation of how to use the features of this tool.
http://www.onlinelearning.net/InstructorCommunity/SelfPacedTutorial.html?s=927.3080o663i.051k001w91∞

This resource provides a section on using Microsoft word for grading assignments, as well as other software that have similar features and functions.
http://www.uhv.edu/webct/faculty/tools/electronic_grading_options.pdf∞