Feedback for Future Learning

1. Feedback for Future Learning Reflecting on Feedback

2. Introduction

3. Online learning units

4. Aims and objectives

5. Reflection How does it relate to academic feedback and learning? What exactly is reflection? What are the benefits of using reflection? What does it mean to be reflective? How can you reflect? You may already be asking yourself some or all of these questions. This learning unit will equip you with some basic knowledge and understanding of how to reflect. This should help you maximise the learning opportunities available from the feedback you receive.

6. What is reflection? • Being ‘reflective’ has been identified as one of the key methods of learning from experience. • Reflection is an active process – it can help you develop an understanding of how historical, social, cultural and personal experiences have contributed to how you study or learn. • Reflection can be applied to any aspect of your life. It’s used to help individuals become lifelong learners and to focus their efforts in getting the most out of situations and, ultimately, improve self-performance. • In this unit, we will explore how reflection can help you maximise the learning opportunities available from your academic feedback.

7. Types of reflection Reflection often takes two forms, as identified by Schon(1983): • Reflection-in-action, which occurs intuitively in experienced professionals, e.g. when an experienced professional in a meeting decides to change their approach because of dynamics within the group. This happens almost automatically. • Reflection-on-action, which involves involves consciously thinking about a specific experience after it has happened, with the aim of learning from the experience. For example, when a new graduate employee takes some time to think about his or her performance in a team meeting. This would happen retrospectively and away from the scene of the meeting. Reflection-on-action requires knowledge of ‘how to reflect’, as it is a thinking or cognitive process. This unit will focus on reflection-on-action, giving you tools to implement these strategies yourself – specifically thinking about how you use academic feedback. [Schon, D. (1983) ‘The reflective practitioner: how professionals think in action’, Temple Smith, London]

8. Who needs to reflect? • Reflection is part of lifelong learning – we all need to be able to reflect. • Reflection is a key component of successful learning. Reflecting on your progress is vital to ensure that you get the most out of your learning experiences, and can use them to their maximum benefit. • Thinking ahead to your future career, professional bodies often require their members to engage in some form of continuing professional development (CPD) to keep up to date with new ideas and practices in their profession. Reflection is akey method of identifying your own CPD needs, whilst at University and throughout your career.

9. Why is reflection important for learning? • Reflection can help you maximise your learning opportunities, making sure you get the most out of each opportunity. • Reflection encourages ‘active learning’ and can help you to: • Identifyyour learning needs. • Seek appropriate learning opportunities or support. • Improve your learning experience and achievement. • Reflection helps you think critically about how you learn and how to make your learning even more successful. • Reflection is a key process in personal development planning, including career planning.

10. Reflection and academic feedback • Students are often unsure about what to do with the academic feedback that they receive. In other words, they don’t know how to act on the feedback. • Reflection can help you identify how you might act upon your academic feedback and how you might useit to improve your overall academic performance. • Reflection can also help you recognisesome of the reasons for your level of achievement – for example, factors that have contributed to high marks or possibly inhibited your learning, resulting in low marks. • Reflection helps you understand yourself better, and you can use this knowledge to help achieve your learning goals.

11. How will reflecting on feedback help me? Taking the time to reflect on your academic feedback can help you to: • Identify how you learn best and under what conditions. • Identify specific areas for development so that you can seek additional support and guidance. • Identify particular skills you have never fully acknowledged before. • Plan how best to use study time. • Plan how you will approach future coursework or exams. • Help you achieve your full potential in your studies.

12. Knowing yourself - Activity Being reflective begins with the assumption that you can learn from your own experiences. Therefore, it’s important that you know yourself and can articulate your own strengths and weaknesses, and can identify any opportunities and barriers to your learning. This is known as a SWOB analysis. For this activity, you should use an A4 sheet of paper and organise it as below: [Jasper, M. (2003) ‘Beginning reflection practice’, Nelson Thomas, Cheltenham]

13. Knowing yourself – SWOB Analysis A SWOB analysis helps you think deeply about your experiences of using academic feedback in the past. This may be at School, College, University or a combination of all three. Think about your whole experience to date in terms of how you have engaged with academic feedback. Click on each section in turn for prompt questions. Note down your responses on your A4 sheet of paper. [Jasper, M. (2003) ‘Beginning reflection practice’, Nelson Thomas, Cheltenham]

14. Knowing yourself – Strengths Think about how you’ve used academic feedback in the past: • What are you good at doing with/about academic feedback? • What are you proud of doing with/about academic feedback? • How have you used academic feedback successfully? Take five minutes to consider these questions. Write your responses down on your sheet of paper under the ‘Strengths’ section. Don’t worry if you struggle to answer some of the questions or if you only partially answer them – the idea is to get you thinking rather than there being a right or wrong answer. You might never have considered these questions before and that’s okay too! [Jasper, M. (2003) ‘Beginning reflection practice’, Nelson Thomas, Cheltenham]

15. Knowing yourself – Weaknesses Think about how you’ve used academic feedback in the past: • What would you like to change about how you engage with academic feedback? • What strategies have you tried to use in relation to academic feedback that have been unsuccessful? • Is there a particular type or form of academic feedback that doesn’t work for you or that you don’t like? Take five minutes to consider these questions. Write your responses down on your sheet of paper under the ‘Weaknesses’ section. Don’t worry if you struggle to answer some of the questions or if you only partially answer them – the idea is to get you thinking rather than there being a right or wrong answer. You might never have considered these questions before and that’s okay too! [Jasper, M. (2003) ‘Beginning reflection practice’, Nelson Thomas, Cheltenham]

16. Knowing yourself – Opportunities Think about how you might improve your engagement with academic feedback: • What support is available to help you? • Who can help you? Take five minutes to consider these questions. Remember to write your responses down on your sheet of paper under the ‘Opportunities’ section. Don’t worry if you struggle to answer some of the questions or if you only partially answer them – the idea is to get you thinking rather than there being a right or wrong answer. You might never have considered these questions before and that’s okay too! There will be also more information on where you can get support later in this unit. [Jasper, M. (2003) ‘Beginning reflection practice’, Nelson Thomas, Cheltenham]

17. Knowing yourself – Barriers Think about how you’ve used academic feedback in the past: • What barriers or obstacles are in your way of achieving your potential? (You might wish to separate these barriers into those which you have control of and those which you don’t). Take five minutes to consider these questions. Remember to write your responses down on your sheet of paper under the ‘Barriers’ section. Don’t worry if you struggle to answer some of the questions or if you only partially answer them – the idea is to get you thinking rather than there being a right or wrong answer. You might never have considered these questions before and that’s okay too! There will be also more information on where you can get support later in this unit. [Jasper, M. (2003) ‘Beginning reflection practice’, Nelson Thomas, Cheltenham]

18. Knowing Yourself – SWOB Activity Please keep your SWOB analysis handy as it will be useful in the next activity. The next slide shows a completed example of a SWOB from a Level 1 student who has looked back at how he engaged with feedback during his first year at GCU.

19. Example of a completed SWOB You should have

20. Knowing Yourself – SWOB Activity • Well done for completing your SWOB analysis! You have taken the first steps towards applying reflection to your learning. • You should now have a clearer understanding of how you have engaged with academic feedback so far. • While it is good to think about your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and associated barriers, this is only helpful if you use this knowledge to create an action plan for the future. This is a key step in reflection. Creating an action plan uses your previous experience to inform and influence your future experiences. • The next learning activity encourages you to reflect upon a specific feedback episode and work through the reflective process. This may be much more specific than the previous activity.

21. Gibbs reflective cycle The Gibbs reflective cycle is a common process used for reflection. Click on each stage of the process for more information about what’s involved. [Gibbs, G. (1988) ‘Learning by doing: a guide to learning and teaching methods’, Further Education Unit, Oxford Polytechnic, Oxford]

22. Gibbs reflective cycle - Description • Describe in detail the feedback experience you are reflecting on. • When was it? • What happened? [Gibbs, G. (1988) ‘Learning by doing: a guide to learning and teaching methods’, Further Education Unit, Oxford Polytechnic, Oxford]

23. Gibbs reflective cycle - Feelings • How did the experience make you feel? • How did you feel about the outcome? [Gibbs, G. (1988) ‘Learning by doing: a guide to learning and teaching methods’, Further Education Unit, Oxford Polytechnic, Oxford]

24. Gibbs reflective cycle - Evaluation • What was good about the experience? • What was bad about the experience? [Gibbs, G. (1988) ‘Learning by doing: a guide to learning and teaching methods’, Further Education Unit, Oxford Polytechnic, Oxford]

25. Gibbs reflective cycle - Analysis • Why might things have gone well / not so well? • How did you contribute to this outcome? • How did others contribute? [Gibbs, G. (1988) ‘Learning by doing: a guide to learning and teaching methods’, Further Education Unit, Oxford Polytechnic, Oxford]

26. Gibbs reflective cycle - Conclusion • What have you learned from examining this experience? • How might things have been different? [Gibbs, G. (1988) ‘Learning by doing: a guide to learning and teaching methods’, Further Education Unit, Oxford Polytechnic, Oxford]

27. Gibbs reflective cycle – Action Plan • How would you deal with this situation if it occurred again? • What will you now do in the future? • What key actions will you take? [Gibbs, G. (1988) ‘Learning by doing: a guide to learning and teaching methods’, Further Education Unit, Oxford Polytechnic, Oxford]

28. Gibbs reflective cycle – Activity You should now be familiar with Gibbs reflective cycle. This is a really useful tool to use for reflecting on specific experiences. Please now take some time to reflect on a specific occasion when you were given academic feedback, using the Gibbs reflective cycle. Drawing the cycle out on a sheet of paper may help – we’ve provided it again on the next slide as a guide. [Gibbs, G. (1988) ‘Learning by doing: a guide to learning and teaching methods’, Further Education Unit, Oxford Polytechnic, Oxford]

29. Gibbs reflective cycle – Activity [Gibbs, G. (1988) ‘Learning by doing: a guide to learning and teaching methods’, Further Education Unit, Oxford Polytechnic, Oxford]

30. Reflection and PPACT academic advising • Reflecting on your academic feedback can really help you to improve your future performance at University. • The PPACT academic advising process at GCU is intended to help you develop personal, academic and professional skills. You will be allocated a named academic advisor, whom you should meet with (individually or as part of a group) three times a year to discuss your academic studies, any co-curricular activities that may enhance your profile, and to reflect on any issues that could impact on your overall performance at University. • Ongoing discussion and dialogue with your PPACT academic advisor, lecturers and Module Leaders can help you get the most from from reflection, and from academic feedback, as you progress throughout your studies. • For more information about academic advising in your programme, please contact your Programme Leader or Level Tutor.

31. Sources of support at GCU

32. Contact Us If you’re still not sure of who to contact or if you’d like any further information or support, please don’t hesitate to get in touch at the contact details below and we’ll be happy to help. Feedback for Future Learning B002, Britannia Building 70 Cowcaddens Road Glasgow, G4 0BA Web: www.gcu.ac.uk/futurelearning Email: studentfeedback@gcu.ac.uk

33. Done... Well done – you’ve now completed this learning unit! We will now look beyond University, exploring how feedback can help you to succeed in the workplace – whether on placement, in part-time work, or in your first graduate job.

34. www.gcu.ac.uk/futurelearning