Feedback to the Future

1. Feedback to the Future Sue Gill, QuILT and Rachael Thornton, NUSU

2. Background • Sector wide concerns about assessment and feedback • NSS not the only driver • Staff concerns too • Our plan • Building on previous joint campaign • Run a campaign to raise student awareness of the feedback they were already getting; how to make use of that feedback; and, to start new students thinking about assessment and feedback at university is different from school

3. What we did • Week 19-25 November • 6 venues, Herschel, Union, Courtyard, Med School, Library and Business School • 7 student helpers + 3 NUSU officers and SG • 467 response postcards completed • Talked to an estimated 700+ students

4. On the day • Asked students to complete a very brief postcard asking them 3 questions • What was the most useful feedback you ever received from a teacher or lecturer? • Why was this feedback so useful? • What did you do with it? • Asked for their School/subject • If they wanted they could also leave the name of the lecturer who’d given them the feedback

5. Results • Had a JobsOC student who transcribed the cards • Analysed by SG • It is anecdotal information • Students interpreted the questions in a variety of ways, though the vast majority did talk about feedback on assessment • Very few rude responses

6. What was the most useful feedback you ever received from a teacher or lecturer? Motivational/folk sayings (20) • “To never give up on what I am doing and strive for success” • “If you act like an idiot you'll get treated like one” • “It won't get done till you actually do it!” • “Put the effort in and you will get what you want”

7. Time management (9) • “Not to rush work, do it properly not quickly” • “Time is the problem not content” Attendance(5) • “Come to all lectures” • “must always attend optional tutorials” What was done well (5) • “Tackled through a complicated question in seminar, shook my hand because I got it so right” “I have lots of distraction” “Small parts of lectures spark ideas/inspires” “Confidence boost”

8. Coursework feedback (114) Range of ways of it being delivered email and notes on work feedback in small tutor groups written feedback face to face over an essay calculation class lab work working through question in lecture revision lecture a combination of face to face and detailed annotation on my work feedback from presentations in seminars marks on written pieces of work

9. Exam Feedback (23) post exam feedback session given guidance on exam technique after the exam exam question and answers past papers “told me where I went wrong” “detailed and identified weak areas” “Helped to know about how well people do on exams” “I know what to work on”

10. Specific advice (133) highlighting areas for correction/improvement recommended reading, journals, books explanation of the aims of the assessment how I could have done better subject specific skills references structure of piece analysis writing style study skills “Way I was presenting back a history was too muddled and needed restructuring in a particular way”

11. Cautions • The language students use is not quite the same as staff use – tests, exams, coursework, assignment, essay – we can’t assume we mean exactly the same • For example, is a ‘Blackboard test’ a summative exam or an individual module formative assessment or something else? • Without a shared vocabulary are other aspects of assessment and feedback also misunderstood? • The questions we asked meant we probably haven't heard anything here about formative assessment

12. What’s not most useful? • Only one student felt their mark was the most useful feedback they got • No students said they were told the right answer as their most useful feedback • No responses talked about self or peer feedback being useful

13. Assessment literacy • The majority of respondents mentioned aspects of assessment literacy as being the most useful feedback they had received Aims of the assignment To improve writing skills Learnt about referencing Makes you think and form an argument I understood what is required

14. Why was it useful?

15. What did you do with it?

16. What did we learn and what next? • Initial plan was to run a ‘what one thing would you change about assessment feedback’ at the same time – this was a bad idea! Will now run this 22-29 April • It is hard, exhausting work persuading students to give us 2 minutes of their time, however the cheerfulness and enthusiasm of the our student team overcame all but the most grumpy student! • Providing a highlighter pen as a thank you was effective

17. What did we learn and what next? • We produced a document about the differences between school and university assessment – we now need to make this more widely available for new students • http://www.ncl.ac.uk/quilt/resources/assessment/AssessmentandFeedbackatUniversity.htm • Also have short document about ‘why reference?’ – copies available or can be found here http://www.ncl.ac.uk/quilt/resources/teaching/writing.htm

18. What does this mean for us? • What can we do to increase students’ assessment literacy? • QuILT can host resources and promote them • We can author resources if we know what would be useful • The best time to ‘get’ students is in the first semester of their first year, how can we do this effectively?

19. Thank you Rachael Thornton education.union@newcastle.ac.uk Sue Gill sue.gill@newcastle.ac.uk