Feedback as a mechanism for improving students' scientific communication skills

Communication is cited as an important scientific skill in institutional standards such as the Next Generation Science Standards and the American Association Physics Teachers laboratory guidelines; however, there are few suggestions on how to support students in developing these communication skills in science. As a possible mechanism for helping students improve their communication skills, we present a scaffolded feedback system, which has been built into the reformed, introductory E&M course. At the beginning of the semester, students receive feedback from an instructor each week about their individual understanding, their group collaboration, and their problem solving process in class. By the end of the semester, students are asked to reflect and write this feedback for themselves. From a case study, we demonstrate the impact of the weekly feedback system on changing and improving a student's communication in this course.