Enhancing Student Engagement with Feedback

1. Enhancing Student Engagement with Feedback Stuart Hepplestone and Helen Parkin,Learning and Teaching Institute

2. Programme Higher Education Academy Evidence Based Practice Seminar Series 2010: Assessment and Feedback Enhancing Student Engagement with Feedback

3. About this seminar • Reflect on your current feedback practice • Consider: • Technology, Feedback, Action! findings1 • Seven Principles of Good Feedback Practice2 • Develop an action plan for transforming feedback practice 1http://tinyurl.com/tfaproject 2 Nicol, D.J. and Macfarlane-Dick, D. (2006) ‘Formative assessment and self-regulated learning: a model and seven principles of good feedback practice’, Studies in Higher Education, 31: 2, 199-218 Higher Education Academy Evidence Based Practice Seminar Series 2010: Assessment and Feedback Enhancing Student Engagement with Feedback

4. Activity: reflecting on your practice • 5 minutes, on your own: • what feedback methods or techniques you currently use, support or promote? Higher Education Academy Evidence Based Practice Seminar Series 2010: Assessment and Feedback Enhancing Student Engagement with Feedback

5. Activity: reflecting on your practice • 20 minutes, in small groups: • discuss your current feedback practice, think about: • what currently works well • what currently doesn’t work as well Higher Education Academy Evidence Based Practice Seminar Series 2010: Assessment and Feedback Enhancing Student Engagement with Feedback

6. Straw poll • Who publishes feedback online? • Who returns feedback without the grade? • Who uses comment banks to generate feedback grids? Higher Education Academy Evidence Based Practice Seminar Series 2010: Assessment and Feedback Enhancing Student Engagement with Feedback

7. Technology, Feedback, Action! • Potential of technology-enabled feedback to improve learning • Evaluate logistical and learning benefits of: • online publication of feedback and grades via the Blackboard Grade Centre • adaptive release of marks through Assignment Handler • linking feedback to assessment criteriausing anelectronic Feedback Wizard • Semi-structured interviews, 23 undergraduates: • Computer Networks • Diagnostic Radiography • Events Management • Psychology Higher Education Academy Evidence Based Practice Seminar Series 2010: Assessment and Feedback Enhancing Student Engagement with Feedback

8. Online publication of grades and feedback/ Blackboard Grade Centre • pushes feedback to students removing the burden to seek out feedback from tutors • allows control over how, when and where feedback is received • students respond to feedback when emotionally ready and in privacy • thoughtfulness and legibility of typed feedback • prompt return of feedback making it current and meaningful • students are more likely to revisit feedback stored alongside their learning when completing future assignments • students monitor progression and performance You don’t have to share it with everyone whereas if you are in a seminar and everyone’s talking about what they got you kind of have to feel the pressure to join in whereas if you get it on Blackboard you can see it at your own leisure It obviously makes it a lot more beneficial to me as a student to receive [feedback] in a much more legible form…typed feedback is much better than written feedback, because you can read it. Lecturers have a tendency to scrawl Higher Education Academy Evidence Based Practice Seminar Series 2010: Assessment and Feedback Enhancing Student Engagement with Feedback

9. Adaptive release of grades/Assignment Handler • learning benefits acknowledged when purpose fully understood • students like to receive theirfeedback and grades in close proximity • students do produce action plans from their feedback but this is a subconscious approach; Assignment Handler provides a space to formalise this process • emphasises the importance of reflection • enhances student engagement with their feedback If I have to reflect on the feedback before receiving the grade then it sticks in my mind a bit longer, the feedback I receive, the points that I am going to use and it’s a little bit easier to remember when I’m working on my next assignment Yeah it’s just stored in my memory. I don’t tend to write action plans down. I tend to retain things in my memory and then if I need to look something up I can usually remember where it is that I found it before Higher Education Academy Evidence Based Practice Seminar Series 2010: Assessment and Feedback Enhancing Student Engagement with Feedback

10. Linking feedback to assessment criteria • feedback grids are most effective when supplementary to ‘in-context’ feedback • identify strengths and weaknesses in a cohesive and legible way • use of assessment criteria to identify learning targets • offers a level of transparency of how overall grade is calculated If you just get … a percentage for a mark out of 20 or whatever then it doesn’t really give you anything. Whereas if you understand the process that the lecturer has gone through with regards to how he’s got to that figure … it gives you a bit more of a basis as to how or why they’ve got to that point You could really clearly see what you had to do for the next one and where you could actually improve Higher Education Academy Evidence Based Practice Seminar Series 2010: Assessment and Feedback Enhancing Student Engagement with Feedback

11. Seven principles of good feedback(Nicol and Macfarlane-Dick, 2006) • helps clarify what good performance is (goals, criteria, expected standards) • facilitates the development of self-assessment (reflection) in learning • delivers high quality information to students about their learning • encourages teacher and peer dialogue around learning • encourages positive motivational benefits and self-esteem • provides opportunities to close the gap between current and desired performance • provides information to teachers that can be used to help shape the teaching Nicol, D.J. and Macfarlane-Dick, D. (2006) ‘Formative assessment and self-regulated learning: a model and seven principles of good feedback practice’, Studies in Higher Education, 31: 2, 199-218 Higher Education Academy Evidence Based Practice Seminar Series 2010: Assessment and Feedback Enhancing Student Engagement with Feedback

12. Activity: seven principles of good feedback • 20 minutes, in small groups: • identify which feedback activities best match each of the seven principles of good feedback practice Higher Education Academy Evidence Based Practice Seminar Series 2010: Assessment and Feedback Enhancing Student Engagement with Feedback

13. Best practice guides and short report Available for download from http://tinyurl.com/tfaproject or search http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/EvidenceNet/resources Higher Education Academy Evidence Based Practice Seminar Series 2010: Assessment and Feedback Enhancing Student Engagement with Feedback

14. Putting into practice:Online publication of feedback and grades • Find out what tools/techniques are available for use at your institution • Who needs access: you, students, teaching team, admin staff • Are you publishing provisional grades or waiting until after assessment boards? Tell students the status of grades • Ensure students can access feedback for duration of their study, or … • … tell students how long it will be available to them • Provide information to students about when feedback will be available, and the format it will be delivered in • Promote effective techniques for storage and retrieval of feedback Higher Education Academy Evidence Based Practice Seminar Series 2010: Assessment and Feedback Enhancing Student Engagement with Feedback

15. Putting into practice:Adaptive release of grades • Find out what tools/techniques are available for use at your institution • Promote educational benefits of feedback for learning, and … • … provide clear guidance to students • Define the boundaries of your assessments at the outset, outlining student responsibilities • Assessment strategies should provide opportunities for feed forward to any future assessment Higher Education Academy Evidence Based Practice Seminar Series 2010: Assessment and Feedback Enhancing Student Engagement with Feedback

16. Putting into practice:Linking feedback to assessment criteria • Find out what tools/techniques are available for use at your institution • Make assessment criteria available from the outset … • … enables students to complete and self-assess their work • Accompany generic statements with individual comments • Standard comments should not just reaffirm the grade • Write feedback in the context of the students' original work Higher Education Academy Evidence Based Practice Seminar Series 2010: Assessment and Feedback Enhancing Student Engagement with Feedback

17. Activity: your action plan • 20 minutes, in small groups: • how will you change your feedback practice to make it more innovative? • what support and resources will you need to make this happen? Higher Education Academy Evidence Based Practice Seminar Series 2010: Assessment and Feedback Enhancing Student Engagement with Feedback

18. Technology, Feedback, Action! deliverables and outcomes • Contributed to the understanding and development of technology-enhanced feedback: • research report to the Higher Education Academy EvidenceNet:http://tinyurl.com/tfaproject • best practice guides for the application of technology to deliver actionable feedback • You are invited to: • read, comment and contribute to the literature review at: http://tinyurl.com/tfalitreview • volunteer submissions of your TFA! case studies Higher Education Academy Evidence Based Practice Seminar Series 2010: Assessment and Feedback Enhancing Student Engagement with Feedback

19. Thank you – any questions? S.J.Hepplestone@shu.ac.uk H.J.Parkin@shu.ac.uk Higher Education Academy Evidence Based Practice Seminar Series 2010: Assessment and Feedback Enhancing Student Engagement with Feedback

20. Adaptive release of grades Back

21. Sample feedback sheet Back

22. Assessment timeline Back