FLOOP: A Venture Analysis
An Introduction to Floop
Floop is a platform for assessment for learning. It helps educators give their learners timely feedback, and facilitates peer feedback between learners. Learners upload their work to Floop, which their educator can then annotate with text or audio comments. Learners can then use the feedback to improve and resubmit their work. This feedback loop encourages learners and enhances their motivation to learn.
The Team
Floop is a tool for educators, by educators. It was founded by Christine Witcher (a middle-school STEM teacher) and Melanie Kong (a high-school STEM teacher and former engineer). Together with the rest of their team of educators and engineers, they share over 25 years of experience of teaching and of working at both startup and established companies.
Value of Floop
In 2018, the Education Endowment Foundation published a meta-analysis which found that
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feedback is the #1 factor in student success.
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This supports the work of Elewar & Corno (1985) and Butler (1988), which showed that learners are more invested in their learning when it is not attached to external rewards (such as grades). Cerasoli & Ford (2014) also observed that intrinsic motivation is directly, and solely, linked to the amount of effort put towards a given task. Intrinsic motivation is how we can tap into learners' curiosity and love of learning, and feedback opens them up to suggestions and revisions (McNutt, 2019).
Ruth Butler on Intrinsic Motivation
Butler compared three groups of learners:
Group 1
[grades only]
Group 2
[comments only]
Group 3
[grades + comments]
They found that only Group 2 increased performance significantly.
Gradeless and project-based learning have been building momentum in recent years. When COVID-19 hit North America in early 2020, it became even more paramount. Assigning grades became a moral dilemma, as learners no longer had the same resources or learning environments. Many educators turned towards assessment for learning, providing feedback on work, accepting revisions, and encouraging learners to have growth mindsets.
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There was a technological hurdle, however. Feedback via email is easily lost in an overflowing inbox. Many teachers dove into digital-classroom platforms, some of which have feedback options but do not make it easily accessible to students. For many educators, though they were heading in the right direction, the experience was a chaotic maelstrom.
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To be effective, feedback must be:
Accessible
Timely
Relevant
Floop streamlines the feedback process for both educators and learners:
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It can be used both on the web and through a mobile app, allowing users to choose their preferred access point.
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It offers many tools to help educators return specific and individualized feedback quickly.​
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This gives learners the agency to act, and to use feedback while it is still relevant to their performance.
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Learning how to receive and grow from constructive feedback is an important life literacy. Giving feedback is more impactful than receiving, and Floop facilitates this through anonymous peer-to-peer assessment.
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Floop tracks all feedback given, including peer-assessment. This can help inform educators on a learner's progress holistically.
TL;DR
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Feedback is the #1 factor in learner success.
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It has the the greatest positive impact on learners' performance when there are no grades attached.
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To be effective, it must be accessible, timely, and relevant.
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Floop is a digital tool that helps educators give prompt, specific feedback so that learners can engage with it while it is still relevant.
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Citations
Butler, R. (1988). Enhancing And Undermining Intrinsic Motivation: The Effects Of Task-Involving And Ego-Involving Evaluation On Interest And
Performance. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 58(1), 1-14. doi:10.1111/j.2044-8279.1988.tb00874.x​
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Cerasoli, C. P., & Ford, M. T. (2014). Intrinsic Motivation, Performance, and the Mediating Role of Mastery Goal Orientation: A Test of Self-
Determination Theory. The Journal of Psychology, 148(3), 267-286. doi:10.1080/00223980.2013.783778
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Education Endowment Foundation. (2018). Feedback. Retrieved October 14, 2020, from https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/evidence-
summaries/teaching-learning-toolkit/feedback/
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Elawar, M. C., & Corno, L. (1985). A factorial experiment in teachers' written feedback on student homework: Changing teacher behavior a
little rather than a lot. Journal of Educational Psychology, 77(2), 162–173. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.77.2.162
Floop Edu. (n.d.). Retrieved October 14, 2020, from https://www.f6s.com/floopedu
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Kong, M. (2020, April 24). Can I Get Some Feedback: Using Technology to Develop Feedback Literacy. Webinar presented at Professional
Development Day, Online.
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London, M. (2015). The power of feedback : Giving, seeking, and using feedback for performance improvement. Routledge.
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McNutt, C. (Host). (2019, August 31). 54: Making the Switch to Ungrading (feat. Abigail French, Dr. Susan Blum, and Dr. Laura Gibbs) [Audio
podcast]. Retrieved from https://bit.ly/2IAYlB5
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Sammartano, Mike. [Mike Sammartano]. (2020, May 19). Using Floop to Provide Quick and Meaningful Feedback on Student
Work [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/O34-2od_Bt4
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Schimmer, T. (Host). (2020, September 28). The Real World | Anthony Muhammad (Pt. 1) | Effective Feedback [Audio podcast]. Retrieved