This paper presents a pilot project that uses cloud-based documents to provide bi-directional feedback on open-ended contextualized activities. The course setting is a first year engineering design and professional practice course of approximately 700 students, taught in three sections, at Queen's University, a medium-sized research-intensive institution in Canada. Students were assigned to
... [Show full abstract] groups, and assigned shared directories in Google Drive. In most lectures students were assigned an activity requiring a response that was completed in a document in Google Drive, e.g. open-ended design problems, brainstorming, evaluation of information sources, etc. The course instructor, and a teaching assistant (TA) who attended each class, were able to view samples of students work and select some to anonymously discuss with the class. Thorough well- Thought responses were highlighted, and misconceptions or misdirection was addressed. In this way students received some feedback on common issues in constructed response tasks immediately, rather than waiting for submission and grading of assignments. Student response to this approach was mixed, with about half the class feeling that the approach helped them learn, and that feedback was useful. About a third were neutral to the idea, and the rest felt it was not useful. There was no correlation between students' use of Google Docs and their grades on the two major reports. The instructor felt that this is a useful approach that helped many students, and would be improved in the future by using classrooms designed for team activities, improving the quality of tasks assigned in class, and assigning completion grades for in-class activities.