Using Assessment Feedback to Engage Students and Direct the Student Learning Experience

1
Using Assessment Feedback to Engage Students and
Direct the Student Learning Experience

• Presented by
• Earle Abrahamson
• e.abrahamson_at_mdx.ac.uk

Higher Education Academy, Assessment Conference
12/11/09, Oxford University
2
Outline of this session

• To discuss feedback as learning
• To explore how best to use feedback to engage
  with our students
• Purposes of feedback external and internal
• Ways to try to make feedback most useful
• Language of feedback helpful not bland!
• Issues for future consideration

3
Consider

• A good teacher is able to communicate clearly
  with the students. It is not the responsibility
  of students to interpret what is going on in the
  teachers mind R Meyers (ISSOTL 2009).

4
The Problem with Assessment?

• There is more known, in every discipline, than
  students in any course can learn!
• As a result, in most courses
• we ask students to learn too much, with the
  seemingly paradoxical result that too little is
  learned and retained.
• If students cant learn it all, what should they
  learn, and consequently be assessed upon?

5
Why do we assess?
2. Quality Assurance
1. Certification
3. Learning 4. Sustainability
6
Uses of feedback

• Feed-outwards function Externals, QAA, Prof
  Bodies
• Showing consistency and fairness and justifying
  grade awarded
• Feed-inwards function key part of our dialogue
  with students about what they have done well,
  what needs improving and how they can make these
  improvements

7
Purposes of giving feedback

• Consider what the specific purposes are e.g.
• to give early encouragement
• suggestions for further work
• to improve summative work
• Consider the level, stage and any particular
  features of the cohort.

8
Assessment for Learning

• Feedback to feedforward
• A key area is to use feedback to help students
  to improve their future work.
• Students may need our help in seeing this.
• Good to explore their previous experiences and
  their expectations about feedback what it is
  for and how they can use it.

9
Some key issues

• How do we give appropriate constructive criticism
  and ensure rigour?
• How do we give accurate feedback on weak work
  without destroying a students confidence?
• How do we ensure that feedback to outstanding
  students is more than the minimal and helps them
  to develop further?
• How do we get students to use the feedback we
  give them to help them move forward?

10
Avoid using final language (Boud)

• Avoid criticising the person rather than the work
  being assessed
• Try not to use language that leaves the student
  nowhere to go e.g. Appalling
• Words like incomparable to excellent students
  feel good but need to be supplemented by
  suggestions for future improvement

11
Concentrate on description, evaluation and
remediation e.g. (Brown)

• This is a well argued essay and draws upon a
  useful set of sources but you could develop this
  further by.....
• There is much to commend your scholarly and
  coherent approach but you have not....
• Where you have drawn upon established
  methodologies is excellent and you could have
  taken this even further by.....

12
Module Feedback Sheet

• Strengths of this work
• Areas that need improvement
• Suggestions as to how you may achieve these
  improvements
• Academic style
• General comments

13
What issues do you face?

• What problems have you encountered when giving
  feedback to students?
• How have you dealt with these problems?
• Are there other ways forward that might be
  helpful?

14
Thoughts to take away..

• What do you need to think more about?

15
Other ways of giving feedback

• Engage students in self- assessment to encourage
  them to use your feedback to feed forward to
  their future work.
• Use peer assessment
• Think about different ways of delivering some of
  your feedback

16
Self assessment Involve the learners feedback
as dialogue
17
Get learners to self assess

• Return tutor marked work back to the individual
  but without the grade
• Get the learner to mark their own work
• Collect learner grades
• 9 out of 10 students will be within 5
• Arrange to talk to those where the difference is
  more than 5 or one criterion

18
Peer Assessment

• Ask students to mark each others work
  formatively.
• One example...
• Think about your role as overseer and quality
  monitor.

19
Saving time

• Generic feedback within 24 hours on VLE
• Face-to-face feedback with whole group or small
  groups
• Peer feedback in groups
• Use technology such as
• Sound files e.g. Audacity (Free)
• Dragon software
• Statement banks
• SELF feedback

20
Using Wordle to check feedback words and
emphasis www.wordle.net
21
Using Wordle to check feedback words and
emphasis www.wordle.net
Students Staff
Pilot Study asked students to self assess work
and then use wordle to check word emphasis and
then input staff assessment into wordle to check
word emphasis N 50 (students)
Abrahamson 2009.
22
Possible suggestions

• Cross module moderation for markers
• Group marking exercises
• Marking buddies across modules
• Assess less or differently give yourself more
  time to complete marking and give good feedback.
• Consider the main ideas within the discipline and
  work on assessing these.
• Induct students into the assessment and feedback
  processes.

23
Thank youAny Questions
24
References

• Argyrous, G. (2005) Statistics for research. 2nd
  ed. Sage , London
• Berger, J. (1972) Ways of seeing Penguin , London
  
• Bringing Educational Creativity to All (BECTA)
  (2006) Tech News March.
• Conole, G. and Dyke, M. (2004) What are the
  affordances of information and communication
  technologies?. Alt-J 122 , pp. 113-124.
• Department for Education and Skills (DfES)
  Standards Unit (2003) The future of initial
  teacher education for the learning and skills
  sector and agenda for reform DfES , London
• Department for Education and Skills (DfES)
  Standards Unit (2004) Equipping our teachers for
  the future Reforming initial teacher training
  for the learning and skills sector DfES , London
• Dyke, M.,  Harding, A. and Lajeunesse, S. (2006)
  Digital Observation of Teaching Practice..
  Paper presented to the Annual Conference of the
  American Educational Research Association, April
  9, in San Francisco, USA

25
References