Feedback Present, Feedback Futures Dai Hounsell The University of Edinburgh Working with Students to Enhance Feedback The Higher Education Academy, Assessment.

Feedback Present, Feedback Futures

Dai HounsellThe University of Edinburgh

Working with Students to Enhance Feedback

The Higher Education Academy, Assessment SIG, 25 March 2010, York

Dai Hounsell, University of Edinburgh Feedback Present, Feedback Futures Working with Students to Enhance Feedback

The Higher Education Academy, Assessment SIG, 25 March 2010, York

BACKGROUND & INTRODUCTION

Strategic priorities for enhancing feedback

Enhancing Feedback:Strategic Oversight

PROMOTING WIDER CHANGES IN ASSESSMENT & CURRICULA

SETTING STANDARDS & EXPECTATIONS

SHARING & PROMULGATING

EFFECTIVE PRACTICES

SUPPORTING REVIEW &

DEVELOPMENT OF PRACTICES

Dai Hounsell, University of Edinburgh Feedback Present, Feedback Futures Working with Students to Enhance Feedback

The Higher Education Academy, Assessment SIG, 25 March 2010, York

BACKGROUND & INTRODUCTION

Strategic priorities for enhancing feedback

Enhancing Feedback:Strategic Oversight

PROMOTING WIDER CHANGES IN ASSESSMENT & CURRICULA

SETTING STANDARDS &

EXPECTATIONS

SHARING & PROMULGATING

EFFECTIVE PRACTICES

SUPPORTING REVIEW &

DEVELOPMENT OF PRACTICES

WORKSHOPS, SEMINARS,

CONFERENCES

"FEEDBACK STANDARDS &

GUIDING PRINCIPLES"

ASSESSMENT FUTURES

TASK GROUP

WEBSITE ON 'ENHANCING FEEDBACK'

Dai Hounsell, University of Edinburgh Feedback Present, Feedback Futures Working with Students to Enhance Feedback

The Higher Education Academy, Assessment SIG, 25 March 2010, York

The University of Edinburgh

Feedback Standards and Guiding Principles

h. Feedback can only work well when it is a joint and shared responsibility.

The onus is on teaching staff to:

• to design courses in ways that enable students to get and to act on feedback

• to inform students when, where and how feedback will be provided in each course for which they are responsible

• to provide feedback which is prompt, informative and helpful, within the resources available to them

The onus is on students to:

• to familiarise themselves with when, where and how feedback is provided in each of their courses

• to develop their understanding of assessment expectations, criteria and standards in their chose degree programme

• to collect and study the feedback provided, and grasp opportunities to put it to good use

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Dai Hounsell, University of Edinburgh Feedback Present, Feedback Futures Working with Students to Enhance Feedback

The Higher Education Academy, Assessment SIG, 25 March 2010, York

BACKGROUND & INTRODUCTION

The Enhancing Feedback Website

Dai Hounsell, University of Edinburgh Feedback Present, Feedback Futures Working with Students to Enhance Feedback

The Higher Education Academy, Assessment SIG, 25 March 2010, York

BACKGROUND & INTRODUCTION

The Enhancing Feedback Website

How canFEEDBACK be improved?

Plugging gapsin feedback

Involving students in feedback

Interacting with

students

New ways of giving feedback

Feedback-rich assignments

Refining traditional feedback

Reshaping curricula and assessment

Briefing and training of students

Dai Hounsell, University of Edinburgh Feedback Present, Feedback Futures Working with Students to Enhance Feedback

The Higher Education Academy, Assessment SIG, 25 March 2010, York

BACKGROUND & INTRODUCTION

Overview of Keynote

I. Fundamentals of Feedback in Higher Education• What is 'feedback', and why does it matter?• What forms does it take ?• Who, where and when of feedback• Feedback's many purposes

II. Feedback Futures• Low-cost/high-value feedback• Hi[gher]-tech feedback• Reconfiguring curricula and assessment for 21st-century

feedback

Dai Hounsell, University of Edinburgh Feedback Present, Feedback Futures Working with Students to Enhance Feedback

The Higher Education Academy, Assessment SIG, 25 March 2010, York

The many voices of feedback

Link

Dai Hounsell, University of Edinburgh Feedback Present, Feedback Futures Working with Students to Enhance Feedback

The Higher Education Academy, Assessment SIG, 25 March 2010, York

FUNDAMENTALS OF FEEDBACK

What is 'feedback' and why does it matter?

• Feedback comprises information, processes, activities or experiences which aim to encapsulate, enable or boost students' learning

• Feedback can focus on:

attainment what a student knows, understands or can do at a given point in time

progress where a student currently stands in relation to a specified goal, target or level

achievement what a student has achieved as demonstrated in a completed assignment or task

Dai Hounsell, University of Edinburgh Feedback Present, Feedback Futures Working with Students to Enhance Feedback

The Higher Education Academy, Assessment SIG, 25 March 2010, York

FUNDAMENTALS OF FEEDBACK

What is 'feedback' and why does it matter?

• Why feedback matters

– learning without feedback is 'blind archery'

– feedback is indispensable to effective teaching and assessment, optimising the conditions under which each student can achieve their best

Dai Hounsell, University of Edinburgh Feedback Present, Feedback Futures Working with Students to Enhance Feedback

The Higher Education Academy, Assessment SIG, 25 March 2010, York

FUNDAMENTALS OF FEEDBACKWhat forms does / can feedback take?

pro forma written comments exemplarsexams guidance feedforward traditionalcollaboration on-display learning peer audiopast questions screencast whole-classclickers in-class assignments cumulative editing using feedback well elective self co-revisione-feedback redrafting reviewing progresscriteria dialogue supervision interactionnew briefing involvement faster feedbackmodel answers training video online

Dai Hounsell, University of Edinburgh Feedback Present, Feedback Futures Working with Students to Enhance Feedback

The Higher Education Academy, Assessment SIG, 25 March 2010, York

FUNDAMENTALS OF FEEDBACK

The who, where and when of feedback

• Sources of feedback– Lecturers, tutors, demonstrators, supervisors, mentors– Fellow-students / peers, a student’s own reflections– The audience for a seminar or poster presentation,

professional practitioners

• Feedback where and when?

formally informally

in timetabled classes / online outwith timetabled classes / offline

intrinsic extrinsic

prior to a task or activity

during a task or activity

after a task or activity

Dai Hounsell, University of Edinburgh Feedback Present, Feedback Futures Working with Students to Enhance Feedback

The Higher Education Academy, Assessment SIG, 25 March 2010, York

FUNDAMENTALS OF FEEDBACK

What purposes can feedback have?

2. justification of grade

1. correction

4. achievement-

raising5. acceleration 6. debugging

7. refinement

9. debate and dialogue

3. encouragement

8. connoisseurship

Dai Hounsell, University of Edinburgh Feedback Present, Feedback Futures Working with Students to Enhance Feedback

The Higher Education Academy, Assessment SIG, 25 March 2010, York

FUNDAMENTALS OF FEEDBACK

Why does feedback speak in so many voices?

• 'signature' feedback practices (c.f. Schulman)

• what's effective or feasible feedback can vary in relation to

– the level of study / stage of students' progression in the subject at university level

– the task or activity they are engaged in

– the wider course setting / teaching-learning environment (and its feedback 'affordances' and constraints)

– the purpose(s) of the feedback

• a rich and expanding palette of possibilities

Dai Hounsell, University of Edinburgh Feedback Present, Feedback Futures Working with Students to Enhance Feedback

The Higher Education Academy, Assessment SIG, 25 March 2010, York

FEEDBACK FUTURES

Low-cost, high-value feedback

• Elective feedback

• Peer and self-generated feedback

• Pre-emptive guidance [c.f. screencasts]

• Exemplars

• Generic or 'whole-class' feedback

• Off-the-shelf and recycled comments

Proxies

• Collaborative tasks and activities

• On-display learning

Dai Hounsell, University of Edinburgh Feedback Present, Feedback Futures Working with Students to Enhance Feedback

The Higher Education Academy, Assessment SIG, 25 March 2010, York

FEEDBACK FUTURES

Hi[gher]-tech feedback

• Audio / podcast feedback

• Video feedback

• Screencasts

• Online and e-feedback

• Using clickers (PRS)

• Recycling written comments

Alan J Cann (2007) Podcasting is Dead. Long live Video!, Bioscience Education E-journal, 10-c1 available at http://www.bioscience.heacademy.ac.uk/journal/vol10/beej-10-c1.aspx

Dai Hounsell, University of Edinburgh Feedback Present, Feedback Futures Working with Students to Enhance Feedback

The Higher Education Academy, Assessment SIG, 25 March 2010, York

FEEDBACK FUTURES

Reconfiguring curricula and assessment

• Multi-media feedback

• [Designing-in progression] from teacher regulation of learning to shared [co-] and student self-regulation

• Constructing feedback as a loop or cycle

• From feedback to feedforward

• Feedback-rich assignments

… Does the future lie in wikis?

Dai Hounsell, University of Edinburgh Feedback Present, Feedback Futures Working with Students to Enhance Feedback

The Higher Education Academy, Assessment SIG, 25 March 2010, York

From teacher- to co- and student self-regulation

“If the purpose of higher education is not just to acquire knowledge, skills and understanding in the discipline but also to develop in students the ability to monitor, evaluate and regulate their own learning, then there must be a shift from teacher regulation to learner regulation over the course of an undergraduate degree.

To achieve this, students must be actively involved in the processes of assessment, in the different components of the assessment cycle. In other words, assessment is a partnership, which depends as much on what the student does as what we do as teachers.”

(Nicol, 2008; Nicol, in press)