‘Key Issues in Assessment and Feedback:
The only feedback I received was two
ticks and a question mark!’
Professor Brenda Smith
University of Surrey
Faculty of Arts and Human Sciences
14 January 2011
Key aims are to...
 Help students to LEARN through assessment
 EMBED FEEDBACK as an integral part of the learning &
teaching process
 Encourage THE ACTIVE ENGAGEMENT OF STUDENTS in the
whole process of assessment and feedback to enhance their
learning
Why do we assess?
2.Quality
Assurance
1.Certification
3.
Learning
4.
Sustainability
Key Issues with assessment?
 Students are often not given the ‘Big Picture’ - students want an ‘e-bay’ or
‘Amazon’ experience
 Students are not actively involved in the whole process
 Insufficient feedback that comes too late - & not integral to the learning process
 Limited assessment methods that may not be aligned to LOs
 Assessed work bunched towards the end of a semester
 Unclear or no specific criteria
 Feedback rather than feed-forward
 Little value placed on self or peer assessment as a graduate skill
 Too much emphasis on marks at the expense of assessment for learning
CONSTRUCTIVE ALIGNMENT
Active
Skills & Knowledge –
Learning Outcomes
Methods
Timing
Feedback/forward
of students
Clear Criteria
Skills Audit
Skill
Communication oral and written
Team working
and interpersonal
skills
Analysing and
solving problems
Taught?
Practiced?
Assessed?
Action
Methods of Assessment
Assignments and the learning opportunity they offer
Communicate information &
ideas in other than the written
word
Become more adept at writing in
different forms, formats &
‘genres’
To understand the benefits &
challenges of working
collaboratively
Methods of Assessment
Assignments and the learning opportunity they offer
Communicate information &
ideas in other than the written
word
Seminar, poster, video, video
conferencing, pod or vodcasts
or other multimedia
Become more adept at writing in
different forms, formats &
‘genres’
Designs; proposals; book
reviews; case reports; web
pages; journal articles
To understand the benefits &
challenges of working
collaboratively
Group problem solving; joint book
reviews; team presentations; role
plays; group exhibition
Methods of Assessment
 Essay, essay plan, journal article, book review, exhibition,
poster, video, case study, In-tray exercise, dissertation,
podcast, vodcast, radio broadcast, lab report, fieldwork report
 Exam – unseen, seen, open, take home
 Portfolio, reflective journal, individual or group presentation,
web design, MCQs, Spreadsheets, project plan, case report,
questionnaire, draft and review
Do you give students a choice of assignments – i.e. say a choice
of essay titles to choice from? Or, could they choose to give a
presentation or produce a report that would still fulfill the LOs?
Being Inclusive
Do you ensure your assessment modes, content and
delivery allow for cultural and learning differences
that enable all your students to contribute to
society effectively and inclusively?
Providing learning opportunities
Do you give your students opportunities
to practise a skill
or
write a draft with feedback
(this feedback could come from their peers)
before being summatively assessed?
Timing of Assessments
Are they spread throughout the semester?
Student Diaries
What could go in them?
Is the schedule of assignments
and the feedback on these
assignments made clear to
students across the year?
Do you provide multiple
opportunities for small low
stake assessments with
feedback?
2011
University
Of
Surrey
2009
Criteria
Are your students always
clear about your criteria?
How can we help to ensure
a common understanding?
Do you check that students really understand
your criteria?
Key issues in feedback
 Students can’t read our writing
 Students only think it is feedback when it is written down
 The feedback given is often not very useful & comes too late
 Little or no use is made of peer/self assessment and feedback
 Students have little opportunity to collate feedback over time
and act upon it
 Very little use is made of feedback as a normal part of the
learning & teaching process
 Different ways of giving feedback are limited
All I get is a grade next to my
matriculation number without
any indication on how I am
actually doing
I got an essay back where the only
comment was ‘use a bigger text
size’, there was nothing on how to
improve my grade
For a rather lengthy scientific
report, the feedback I received
consisted of a mere two ticks and a
question mark
I have never received feedback for
any of my exams and this means I
don’t know how to improve for
the third year when the marks
really count
Don’t use bullet points!
Why did I get 37% ?
Students want more useful
feedback. The also want more
verbal and face-to-face
feedback.
What can we stop doing to
enable this to happen?
PODCAST/VODCAST lectures?
When I get to sit down with my
tutor and discuss my work –
that’s probably the best form of
feedback I can get
We need to explore students’ expectations of
assessment and feedback
Inducting students
Get students confident with assessing
 Give students in groups a selection of essays - Excellent, Good,
Average & Fail
 Students decide individually which essay fits into which
category and then compares notes in small groups
 Then get students to tease out the differences & express these
differences as criteria
 Students then provide feedback on each piece of work in their
groups
 Students then provide guidelines for effective essay writing
 What has each student/group learned?
Get students actively involved
Use feedback as an integral part of the curriculum
 In small groups get students to exchange an assessed piece
of their work and compare the feedback comments with
group members
 Do they understand the comments?
 How would they respond to the comments?
 What would they do differently next time if:
a) They re-did the same assignment
b) Applied the learning to a new and different piece of
work?
Quick ways of giving feedback
 Generic feedback within 24 hours on the VLE
 Face-to-face feedback with the whole group or small groups
 Peer feedback in groups
 Use technology - Audacity, Dragon, Statement Banks
 Self-feedback - help students develop the skills of self
reflection
Students want more face-to-face feedback – what can we stop
doing to enable this to happen?
Understanding...?
 This report is not logically structured
 This essay is not sufficiently analytical
 We need to develop the skills of self-
assessment & encourage students to be
active in this process
Should we stress self and peer assessment
as a graduate skill?
Involve the students
Student
These are areas of my work which I
think are good
Please comment on the following
areas
What I want to improve or do
differently next time
The mark I think it deserves is
Staff
USING FEEDBACK TO LEARN
LEARNING
Most significant feedback comments
What did you understand these to mean?
ANALYZISING
Things that I did that attracted positive comments
Things that I did that attracted critical comments
Any recurring trends or comments?
PLANNING AND FEEDING FORWARD
Things I can do to build on the positive feedback
Things I can do to address the critical feedback
Ref: P Race (2007). How to get a Good Degree
A Way Forward
The single most important thing for me to
keep doing in the future is..
The single most important thing for me to
improve in my future work on the basis of
this feedback is…
Getting students to reflect on their learning
Dialogue Starters...
 How did this essay make you think differently?
 Which part of the assignment do you feel less confident about?
 What was the most challenging part of this assignment?
 Jot down 2 things you have learnt doing this assignment that
you did not expect to learn?
 What advice would you give to students doing this
assignment?
 If you were to do this assignment again, what one change
would you make?
Hot Ten Tips
 Help students to want feedback, not just the mark
 Give some feedback quickly
 Think of a variety of ways of giving feedback + actively
involve the students
 Have an appropriate balance of formative and
summative assessment
 Link feedback to learning outcomes and criteria
Hot Ten Tips
 Use feedback as an integral part of your lectures
 Ensure your feedback includes feed-forward
 Use self & peer assessment and feedback
 Give students practice in understanding and using
feedback
 Make feedback interesting and motivational
Quality Enhancement? Do you….
 review your assessment and feedback practices on an annual basis?
 seek the views of students on their assessment and feedback practices
to ensure continuous improvement by engaging in a dialogue?
 ensure that when changes are made as a result of dialogue that the
outcomes are fed back to the students?
 engage as a course team in peer observation and in reviewing the
feedback that students receive?
 critique your own feedback practices to ensure that it enhances
student learning?
Any Questions?
Involve your students
as active partners in
the learning process