Packback Reviews

I like the fact that Packback allows me to incorporate the use of AI into my course. It enables my students to use AI responsibly while learning how to strengthen their writing skills. The Deep Dive assignments encourage students to exercise and enhance their writing skills. The feedback feature is a huge plus as it highlights grammatical and mechanical aspects of writing that need to be refined. I love the discussion portal as it encourages students to seek scholarly literature to support their discussion, and is far more interactive than traditional discussion platforms.

I do not have any cons to address. The platform works perfectly for my needs!

Many of my students struggled with writing, especially writing scientifically. With Packback, students now have a platform that helps guide and strengthen their writing. The benefit of using Packback is that my students now get constructive feedback that is aligned to my expectations for each assignment.

There are so many aspects of Packback that I appreciate, especially their customer service. My rep is very attentive and consistently keeps me informed about new opportunities. My students are highly engaged with Packback, even though there is a learning curve at first. However, once a student understands the platform and works through that initial adjustment, the feedback has been very positive. We have also participated in several professional development opportunities with my co-workers, and I encourage them to use the platform as well. Moving forward, I plan to explore the deep dive features in more detail.

I’d like to dive deeper into the Deep Dives. I think they’re a really cool feature, but I just haven’t had the time to explore them fully yet. The only issues I’ve run into so far are students having access problems because of their high schools’ firewalls. Also, I think more videos showing students how to structure a post would be helpful. My students tend to struggle at the beginning with understanding how to post, so having an example post to reference would be great as well.

I was having trouble getting my students to engage on the LMS discussion board. Since I started using Packback, I’ve noticed that my students are much more engaged and genuinely enjoy interacting with each other. Their curiosity scores are high, and they really like the sparks and pins, which seems to keep the conversations going.

The discussions are easy to use and the curiosity score helps to ensure an appropriate level of thoughtfulness and effort in the each student's engagement with content. The ability to set up rubrics, prompts, and other criteria make it easy to grade the Deep Dives and enhance the quality of student's work. I am just exploring the Polls, but am excited to use that feature more in classroom discussions.

Nothing specific - I think it is all upside in my experience so far.

It would be great for assignment deadlines in Packback to sync with Blackboard to help my students stay on top of deadlines more easily.

It solves a big problem for me: how to keep student engaged on a weekly basis while developing their own voice and critical thinking skills. As I have been forced to teach bigger and bigger classes, I fear students become passive without some constant interaction. The asynchronous discussion Packback provides solves this problem wonderfully, and is superior to the Canvas discussion tools I had used before. I especially love the ease with which I can check on the group's performance, personalize feedback to students who are missing work, and praise and feature students who are doing well. I can bring their questions into class and use that as the start of the discussion, which is a great boost for them. Also, the Deep Dive function has greatly increased my efficiency in grading papers. I had to do read 160 last term, and it wasn't a nightmare! Lastly, the person-to-person interface with Packback's employees has been consistently excellent. I have never had a problem they couldn't solve, and it is usually taken care of well within 24 hours. That really made the difference for me as instructor.

The name: nobody knows what it means and they constantly confuse it with backpack. There are fiddly things about integration with Canvas, but they seem to be getting better. It's just that first-time adopters have a learning curve. Luckily the PB personnel set you up and guide you, so you can definitely get it done.

PB is helping me to teach classes of 80 students while not sacrificing 1) student engagement through weekly discussion and 2) regular student writing assignments. I had long ago sworn an oath NEVER to become a professor who just gives multiple choice tests, but I am getting little support as my class enrollments increase. So without a teaching assistant, I have to do it all. Packback has made me more effective as an instructor with large groups and I actually enjoy the student discussion more than ever now, since their question-based discussions take me far and wide, way beyond the topics I might propose myself.

The format encourages students to explore a topic within the class that they find interesting, which they find really motivating and engaging. I was surprised at how much students got engaged with the assignments when they started writing about something they were really interested in exploring. Packback also gives students feedback on reference and citation use, and ensures that AI generated content is limited in their assignment submissions. All of this is managed by giving students direct feedback and the ability to improve their work iteratively. Some students have even noted that this is a great jumping off point to help get them started on research ideas. And importantly, packback can provide this type of learning support in very large online classes, where instructor time, resources, and support would not make this level of feedback possible otherwise. An excellent critical thinking based assignment for large classes! Also, the platform is very easy to link to a course Canvas page, which is easily done with support from their great customer service.

Packback doesn't have the ability to filter for content, only for depth of the discussion and other important writing and citation building skills. This means students could theoretically write about aliens and still get full credit (yes, this has been attempted in my class). So you still do need to put some time into skimming through the posts to ensure students are on topic, but overall this is still a lot less time spent in grading as there would be otherwise.

It is solving the problem of how to incorporate critical thinking assignments that engage students in higher levels of learning, when teaching very large classes and/or online classes, where this type of assignment is difficult to achieve. This really supports student learning on multiple levels that I would not be able to provide to students in-depth otherwise.

It helps to outsource some of the student feedback on little things like grammar, spelling, citing sources, etc. Then I can engage with the highest level of student submissions. It's one of the better forms of AI use that I've seen in higher ED.

The cost, honestly. I have a lot of first generation, low-income students and some of the struggle to afford the subscription.

It's helping students think of their own questions and ideas and engage with their classmates.

A great way to interact with the students. Also the student to student engagement is fabulous.

There is nothing about Packback that I don't like. It's very user friendly with amazing support staff.

There are no problems at this time.

My favorite feature about Packback is the AI-grading system or curiosity score. This feature allows me to focus more on the content of the students' posts and provide better feedback rather than having to determine where their grade falls on a particular scoring range. It also helps by identifying the minimum curiosity score that students have to achieve to receive full credit for their submission. When students are aware of the minimum curiosity score their post has to reach, they have a better understanding of what they have to achieve to master their discussion board assignments. Overall, quicker grading, more efficient and useful feedback for students, and a better understanding of the requirements for discussion board assignments is why I continue to use Packback in my courses.

I would appreciate being included in the message chain whenever students' posts are flagged for potential AI use or other concerns.

I really love Packback's automated feature for recording references in the writing assignments. I don't think I've ever seen a better system for implementing this onto students' papers. My students are always amazed when I show them how it works, and it lets them focus exclusively on writing instead of how to format their works cited page.

The discussion boards raise the quality of engagement. Students really get interested in each other's posts, and I see them asking questions that reflect deep thought.

The cost - I hate making my students pay so much for it.

Packback is helping users engage with each other at a deeper level, without me having to moderate or review their posts.

Packback helps build community in my classes. It's interactive and engages my students to connect with each other through responding to each other's writing. Packback is easy to use and the customer support is quick and responsive.

Grades do not post immediately. It takes a few hours to load grades.

Packback helps to create a participation assignment for my class so I can track attendance.