8 Providing Students with Timely and Extensive Feedback Using Brisk
Ashley Colson
Abstract
This paper introduces Brisk, a Google Chrome extension that utilizes AI to provide students timely and extensive feedback on their work. The author discusses how Brisk’s various feedback options, including Glow and Grow, Next Steps, Rubric Criteria, and Targeted Feedback, can help teachers efficiently grade assignments and give students valuable input to improve their learning. The paper presents a case study demonstrating Brisk’s capabilities and explores how the tool can save teachers time and enable responsible use of AI in the classroom.
Figure 1
Teacher Correcting but Not Stressed
Note. Ashley Colson (2024) generated this image using the Freepik AI platform. I dedicate any rights I hold to this image to the public domain via CC0.
Introduction
With class sizes getting larger, giving students extensive feedback on their work in a timely fashion is becoming more challenging. Either teachers read and grade a student’s work using a rubric and give no individual feedback, allowing the turnaround time to be a few days, or they take time to give students extensive individualized notes and have students waiting for potentially multiple weeks to get the work back. By this time, the student may need help to internalize the feedback to help improve their work (Brooks et al., 2019). The third option is for the teacher to stay up late, work outside their contracted hours, try to give feedback to students and get assignments back with a fast turnaround. This option could lead to teacher burnout. With the introduction of AI, teachers now have a better option that allows them to grade papers with a fast turnaround and give students extensive notes. Introducing Brisk, the feedback AI tool.
Brisk is a Google Chrome extension that gives students feedback on work done on Google Docs or Slides. This tool allows teachers to give more extensive feedback to their students faster than if they had to create it themselves. All you need is to install the extension, know the criteria you are looking to grade using a rubric or specific prompt, and Brisk it. The extension will write feedback based on your parameters that the students can use to improve their work, and it saves you time.
Learning Objectives
Learning Objectives
- Explain how Brisk, a Google Chrome extension, can provide students with more timely and extensive feedback on their work using AI.
- Describe the key feedback options available in Brisk, including Glow and Grow, Next Steps, Rubric Criteria, and Targeted Feedback, and how they can help teachers efficiently grade assignments.
- Analyze how Brisk can save teachers time, enable more formative assessment, and allow for responsible use of AI in the classroom.
Case Study
Benefits of AI Feedback
AI tools can generate feedback much faster than human teachers, enabling students to receive timely input on their work (Wang, 2024). This is particularly beneficial in today’s educational landscape, where students often have to wait for extended periods to receive feedback on their assignments. Prompt feedback is crucial for the learning process, as it allows students to address areas for improvement while the material is still fresh in their minds. Moreover, AI-powered systems can offer more consistent feedback than human markers, which unconscious biases or varying experience levels may influence (Wang, 2024).
AI-powered feedback tools have the potential to support personalized learning by tailoring feedback to individual student needs (Wang, 2024). AI systems can analyze vast amounts of data, including student writing patterns and learning progress, to provide targeted recommendations for improvement. This level of personalization can be challenging for teachers to achieve, especially in large classrooms with diverse learners. Research suggests that combining AI-generated feedback with peer feedback can be particularly effective . While AI excels in providing general feedback on areas like grammar, structure, and clarity, peer feedback offers valuable insights from a student’s perspective (Banihashem et al., 2024). Students can benefit from both types of feedback, receiving a comprehensive assessment of their work and developing their critical thinking and feedback literacy skills.
Studies have shown that AI-generated feedback can be as effective as teacher feedback in reducing student anxiety related to writing (Wang, 2024). AI tools offer a less intimidating environment for receiving feedback, allowing students to review suggestions and make revisions without the pressure of direct teacher interaction. This, in turn, can lead to improved writing outcomes as students feel more confident and motivated to engage in the revision process (Wang, 2024).
Feedback Using Brisk
Example paragraph that will be used to assess.
My first camping trip was so exciting! We drove for hours to the campsite. Me and my dad set up the tent together. It was hard, but we did it! We went swimming in the cold lake. I had a breath-holding contest with my sister and I won! At night, we had a campfire. We roasted hot dogs and made s’mores. The marshmallows got all gooey. In the tent, I heard weird noises outside like owls. It was a little scary but cool. I fell asleep thinking about how fun camping is.
Glow and Grow
This option tells the students what they are doing well and how they can grow by improving the piece of work. This is great for Formative assessment when students can go back and make improvements (Brisk, 2024).
Example of Glow and Grow feedback for the memory paragraph
The prompt we gave to Brisk was: Write feedback about spelling, grammar, sentence structure and did they have a beginning, middle and end.
As you can see in this example, the feedback gives students some positives that they can feel good about, which helps improve student confidence (Brooks, 2019). The Grows are stated as suggestions, and by giving examples like the use of more exciting words, the student has a jumping-off point to use this feedback in a productive way. The wondering section gives students prompts to reflect and allows them to choose to add more to improve their writing.
Next Steps
This shares suggestions and strategies to build core skills (Brisk, 2024, 8). It is a great tool for assessments that students will see again or that build to similar themes or projects. It is also great for formative assessment when the student handing it to the teacher is just one step in the project, and they will go on to further revise and edit after you have seen it.
Example of Next Steps feedback for the memory paragraph
Unlike Glow and Grow, this gives students a list of things they need to finish to improve their project. If the list of steps is too long and overwhelming for students, teachers can change the prompt they give Brisk so it focuses on one specific area. This is helpful with the number of differentiations we have in classrooms. Some students may be ready for all this feedback, but others may only want to focus on one writing goal at a time. Teachers must remember that just because Brisk has suggested this feedback to students does not mean all the feedback must be shared with students.
The following two feedback examples allow users to upload a rubric instead of typing in a prompt. This is a copy of the rubric that we will be using. It was also created in brisk using the create option and passing in the feedback prompt we used for the previous two examples.
Fig.4 Rubric for grading the memory assignment.
| Skill | 4 – Great Job! | 3 – Good Work | 2 – Getting There | 1 – Needs Improvement |
| Spelling | All or almost all words are spelled correctly | Most words are spelled correctly, with only a few mistakes | Many words are spelled correctly, but there are several errors | Many spelling errors that make the writing hard to read |
| Grammar | Uses correct grammar throughout the writing | Has a few small grammar mistakes | Has some grammar mistakes that sometimes confuse the reader | Many grammar mistakes that make the writing hard to understand |
| Sentence Structure | Uses a variety of sentence types and lengths | Most sentences are well-structured with some variety | Some sentences are well-structured, but many are simple or repetitive | Sentences are often incomplete or confusing |
| Story Organization | Has a clear beginning, middle, and end that flow together nicely | Has a beginning, middle, and end, but some parts could be clearer | Has some parts of a beginning, middle, and end, but they’re not well-organized | Writing is jumbled with no clear beginning, middle, or endExample of Rubric Criteria feedback for the memory paragraphSpelling: |
Rubric Criteria
Users can upload a rubric and Brisk will give feedback on the document aligned with the rubric that was uploaded. (Brisk, 2024) This is great for Summative or Formative assessment where you have a rubric you have supplied to the students at the start or have co-constructed with your class. This example used the rubric found in Figure 4.
Example of Rubric Criteria feedback for the memory paragraph
Spelling:
- Great job spelling most words correctly!
- A few tricky words like “marshmallows” and “breath-holding” were spelled perfectly.
- Keep up the good work with your spelling.
Grammar:
- Your grammar is mostly correct. Nice job!
- Watch out for sentences like “Me and my dad set up the tent.” Try “My dad and I” instead.
- Keep practicing your grammar to make your writing even better.
Sentence Structure:
- You use a mix of short and longer sentences. That’s good!
- Try connecting some short sentences with words like “and” or “but” to make your writing flow better.
- Keep working on making your sentences varied and interesting.
Story Organization:
- Your story has a clear beginning, middle, and end. Great job!
- You start with arriving at the campsite, describe fun activities, and end with going to sleep.
- To make it even better, try adding more details about how you felt during different parts of the trip.
Even though this uses an uploaded rubric to help guide the feedback parameters, it does not tell the students where they are on the rubric. It would be helpful to have comments that guided the students to understand what they needed to do to go from a 2 to a 3 on the rubric, but that may come in the future. This feedback tells students what they are doing well and gives them something to work on. Some comments could be more specific, like keep practicing your grammar without being specific about what grammar rule needs improvement, but the teacher can always choose to exclude that comment.
Targeted Feedback
This feature allows the user to upload a PDF rubric and Brisk will add comments right to the Google Doc aligned with the rubric showing the student exactly where they need to consider making changes. (Brisk, 2024) It is like a real person went through their work and showed them exactly how to get a better grade. This is perfect for editing and revising or for those students who think they are done but still have time to make changes. The rubric from Figure 4 was used for this example.
Example of Targeted Feedback for the memory paragraph
Some teachers love this method of giving students feedback because they can see exactly what the feedback is connected to. Students can also press the checkmark on the comment once they feel they have resolved the issue, and the comment disappears. The biggest downside of this feature is that it is only available in the paid version of Brisk. This means schools or districts will need to get a subscription, or if teachers want to pay out of pocket, there is an individual teacher subscription option as well.
Vignette
The teacher sits down to start grading her student’s work, and she realizes there are 30 students who all handed work in, but as she goes through, she discovers that they are all making different errors. She decides to allow students to revise their work again and resubmit. This is the appropriate choice and good pedagogy for assessment. However, she then feels the daunting task of pointing out all the student’s areas to improve. Instead, she inputs the rubric into Brisk and allows targeted feedback to show up on each student’s Google Doc. She can read the feedback and change what she disagrees with as the feedback is generated. A task that would have taken her multiple days she gets done in her prep period. The next day, students can review her feedback and make revisions based on her suggestions. When students resubmit their work, she can see improvement, and she chooses to grade the student’s papers for marks, not overwhelmed that she had to grade the work twice. As a bonus, she uses the Grow and Glow feedback tool to generate feedback that she inserts into the student’s learning management system so parents and students can get the complete picture of things the student did well and what they can improve on for the next writing project.
Responsible use of AI
If you already use Google tools, this extension works seamlessly by overlaying what you already do. This extension does not require the user to copy and paste students’ work into the AI generator. With Targeted feedback, comments are generated on the Google Doc, allowing students to see exactly what they need to change and where it is in the text. By uploading rubrics, the user can easily customize the feedback to specifically target what is being evaluated without developing an AI prompt that may take a few tries before the user gets the output they are looking for. Brisk is an excellent tool if you already use a learning management system that allows students to hand in live Google documents such as Google Classroom or Edsby.
Like all tools, there are some drawbacks to this extension. The base extension is free, but there is a subscription price to get access to all the features. If you use Microsoft, then Brisk will not work for you, and you will need to learn to use the Google suite of tools. You will have to judge if learning to use Google Docs and Slides is something you want your students to have to do. It is an easy learning curve for most students as the functions and icons are similar to those of Microsoft and Google. Brisk, like any AI, is not perfect, and once you use it, you will be responsible for checking for bias and accuracy. The tool’s creators reference the 80/20 “Own the thinking, outsource the doing.” (Brisk, 2024,8). To do this, you should be as specific as possible when giving Brisk a prompt. You will need a computer to run this program since it is an extension and not a website. It does not work on iPads.
Future Research and Innovation
With the increased abilities of AI, there could be a day when tools such as Brisk will be able to take a rubric, give a student a grade and provide feedback, giving teachers more time to focus on filling in the instructional areas that are a challenge for students. This would also allow students to self-assess their work and make all the necessary changes before handing it to the teacher, allowing students to truly hand in their best work for summative assessment because AI has helped them do the formative assessment throughout the project. If you do not use Google, there are other AI sites, such as Magic School, that can help you give students feedback.
Summary
Click below to watch a video summary of the chapter.
Note. This video was produced by Ashley Colson (2024) using Invideo AI. Any screen shots of the Brisk app were with the permission of Brisk.
Acknowledgements
Thank you to Brisk for allowing me to use images and screenshots. The Brisk extension was used to create the writing example and rubric for the case study, as well as to create feedback and demonstrate how the extension works. Thank you to Cody for peer editing this chapter and improving it through his feedback. Also, thank you to classmates in ETAD 873 for their ideas and feedback.
Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID)
AshleyColson https://orcid.org/0009-0009-0447-1815
Ashley Colson holds a bachelor’s degree in education from the University of Saskatchewan. She is currently working towards her Masters in Education through the Technology and Instructional Design program. She has 10 years experience in the classroom in the area of middle years.
References
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