The Student Government Association of the Department of Social Studies of Seoul National University (SNU) carried out a movement to require their professors to provide feedback on every report students submit after the midterm exam on October 10.
      This requirement actually received positive responses from the professor of the Social Science department. Although the professors cannot change the system right away, they promised to show efforts to meet the students’ expectations.
 Not receiving feedback on reports and assignments is not only SNU students’ problem, but it has been one of the prevalent issues among all university students for a long time. “I attended Ewha for two years, but I never received feedback on the reports I handed in. In some classes I don’t even know what grade I got for the report because students only see the final grade, which is added up with the exams. I sometimes doubt if the professors had read my reports,” said Park Eun-hyung (Political Science & Diplomacy, 2).
     Students who received feedback on their reports comment that getting feedback has been a great help to them compared to the classes that did not provide such feedback. “Last semester, I took a class where I received elaborate and detailed comments from the professor. The comments made me feel like as if I was having a conversation with the professor. The comments not only contributed to my personal improvement, but it also gave me a strong faith that I received an accurate evaluation. In other classes where I did not receive feedback, I sometimes doubted if I got appropriate grades,” said Kim Hyung-yoon (Liberal Arts, 1).
     Moon Sae-in (English Education, 2),who also received feedback for her reports said, “I took English Composition class last year and in this class the professor corrected every sentence. It helped me a lot since I could see where I made mistakes and what I could have done to improve it. I’m sure it will prevent me from making the same mistake again later on.” Although it is ideal for students to receive feedback on every report they hand in, it might not be just as simple to the professors who actually have to work a lot to give the comments.“I give feedback on every report students hand in because, referring back to my college years, getting feedback had been a great help to me. When I think of it from the student’s point of view, it is a needed process especially in classes where students share their thoughts, which right or wrong answers do not exist,” said Professor Lee Suk–hyang (Special Education).
     “However, although I give feedback, I think it is not an easy process to do it especially due to the time limits. So, I think it would be a bit too harsh for the professors if the students expect to receive feedbacks from every class because some professors are really busy, and some classes might be too big to give feedbacks on reports,” said Lee.
Lee doubts that providing more teaching assistants to check reports, which is one of the suggested supports SNU promised to give to the professors, will be a great help.
     “I am not sure if assistants assigned exclusively to check the reports could give appropriate feedback because they might not know what is an expected answer due to lack of knowledge about the courses. Also, I doubt that students will be satisfied with feedbacks given by assistants,” said Lee.
     However, students show a great desire to receive feedback on their reports. “I hope to receive feedback on the reports because the feedback will teach me successful ways to write reports which will improve my ability to write reports at the fundamental level,” said Park. 

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