Distance Learning Unit Faculty of Engineering and Design Towards Enhanced Feedback Practices

1. Distance Learning Unit Faculty of Engineering and Design Towards Enhanced Feedback Practices in a Virtual Environment – a case study Mick Hancock Peter Mellett Rachel Wood Alex Copping May 2011

2. Context ... • A modular distance learning M-level programme in Construction Management • 300 students in 45 countries worldwide • Blended learning format – teaching and learning materials include printed ‘workfiles’, textbooks and online activities. • Students meet online and at residential schools to establish ‘collaborative communities of practice’ • Student support includes a full-time dedicated Bath-based Programme Administrator and external, contracted, module-specific online tutors who are usually academic subject specialists. ...and Generalisability • How do you attempt to answer questions of the sort ‘How can I improve the quality of my/our practice?’ • How ‘distant’ are your colleagues and other critical staff? • How can you bring them ‘closer’ so that change is owned by all within a sense of corporate endeavour?

3. The Distance Learning MSc programme International Construction Management (ICM)

4. ICM – Core Modules Assessment Profiles • Module 1 – Assignment 60% / Open Book Exam 40% • Module 2 – Assignment 60% / Open Book Exam 40% • Module 3 – Online Negotiation Task 50% / CW 50% • Module 4 – Assignment 50% / Closed Book Exam 50% • Module 5 – Assignment 50% / Open Book Exam 50% • Module 6 – Assignment 50% / Closed Book Exam 50% NB. Assignments and examinations are written and marked by the relevant tutor. Assignments are updated/amended as circumstances dictate/allow.

5. ICM Core Units – tutors’ questionnaire response scores

8. Good Feedback A positive focus Start off with a positive encouraging comment. Balance negative with positive comments. Turn all criticism into positive suggestions. Suggesting where next Make general suggestions on how to go about the next assignment. Suggest specific ways to improve the assignment. Suggest follow-up work and references. Ask questions which encourage reflection about the work. Making connections with the student Be prompt. Use informal, conversational language. Offer help with specific problems. Offer the opportunity to discuss the assignment and comments. Offering justification Explain all your comments. Include a brief summary of your view of the assignment. Relate specifically to the learning outcomes and assessment criteria. Explain the mark or grade, and why it is not better (or worse!)

9. Good Assessment for Learning… …Engages students with assessment criteria …Supports personalised learning …Focuses on student development …Ensures feedback leads to improvement …Stimulates dialogue …?

10. Your plans… • What must you keep? • What could you keep? • What could you change? • What must you change? • Justifications • Now, soon, and a bit further on • What evidence will you collect to tell the team your ‘new’ thing has been a success?

12. The ICM Assessment Development Problem • Tutors do not have sufficient ‘spare’ time to engage with this project as envisaged • and fulfil their obligations to ICM students as currently constituted • and meet their other mainstream professional commitments. • External distance learning tutors operate as academics working in a semi-autonomous mode; there are dangers that change actioned internally may be perceived as rule by diktat and meet resistance. The ICM Feedback Problem • All feedback opportunities are limited where an assessment task may be intrinsically infertile or its intention is obscurely expressed.

13. The Tutor’s Assessment Mantra Bearing in mind the requirement to ensure that all assessment briefs should allow students to give the best possible account of their learning .... .... can I demonstrate that my assessment activities discriminate accurately and fairly?

14. Effecting change • How do we bring about change in assessment practice and feedback practice – whereby internal staff do the development work and tutors hold the changes as their own? • How do we establish an inclusive ‘us’ in the place of two lots of ‘them and us’ seen from opposing sides?

15. Buy two, get two (three) free! Bearing in mind the requirement to ensure that all assignment briefs allow students to give the best possible account of their learning, can I show that my assessment activities discriminate accurately and fairly? Assignment statement + Marking criteria  Marking process + Feedback process . . . . and feedforward

16. ICM – Core Module Assignment Profile • Do tutors have a common understanding of the key terms? • Are the requirements made explicit to the students or do they depend on a tacit knowledge of academic terms, of which students may not share our understanding?

17. Bloom & Co.

18. ICM Core Module Assignments – Action Verb Analysis

19. academic discussion academic essay account analyse comment upon commentary consider critical appraisal critical exploration critically appraise critically assess critically review critique describe discuss discussion paper elaborate on essay evaluate explain explore identify Justify list outline paper recommend reflect on report Starting the glossary from existing terms

20. Gently coaxing What we would like you to do • Review and comment on the Glossary of terms so that we can develop a shared understanding of key terms (to be published to students in due course) by 1st April • Review your own assignment brief, taking account of the need for clarity of meaning and explanation of requirements so there is no room for ambiguity, and bearing in mind the range of skills required across the programme. Submit a new assignment brief and marking criteria by 1st April. Below you will find links to each of the assignment briefs and assessment criteria. These include annotations by Peter Mellett and Rachel Wood with potential points for clarification.

21. Key words and appropriate responses

22. Summary • The more ‘distant’ colleagues and other staff are, the more difficulty you will have acting as an agent of change. • Be careful about the assumptions make when using the word ‘we’. • Approach change from the perspective of an action-reflection cycle so that you do not make false assumptions about progress i.e. ask (and respond to) the sequential questions: • What is my concern? • Why am I concerned? • What do I think I can realistically do about it? • What kind of evidence can I collect to help me make some judgments about what is happening? • How can I check that my judgment about what has happened is reasonably fair and accurate? • Affirm all contributions, however small, from ‘distant’ colleagues and clearly incorporate them into the evolving dialogue about change – and in the amended teaching and learning materials/processes that result and which those ‘distant’ colleagues ultimately will have to use.