FeedbackFeed forward in Engineering Education

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Feedback/Feed forward in Engineering Education

• Jane Pritchard - Learning and Teaching Advisor
• Roger Penlington
• Alan Webb
• jane_at_engsc.ac.uk

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Outline of the day

• Welcome
• Staff and student perceptions of what makes for
  'good ' or 'effective' feedback?
• Good practice in feedback on formal reports,
  assignments and dissertations
• Easing the academics burden of giving rapid
  return feedback
• What is the Engineering Subject Centre
• Summary

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• One piece of good feedback you have received
• One piece of negative feedback you have received

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Questions about feedback
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Terminology

• Formative Assessment
• Assessment for providing feedback to learners in
  order to help them learn and feedback to teachers
  for deciding how a students learning should be
  taken forward.
• Summative Assessment
• Assessment which provides overall evidence of the
  achievement of students and of what they know,
  understand and can do, by assigning a value to
  what the student achieves.

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Feedback AND Feed forward

• Feedback
• comments on a completed work that the student
  cannot repeat. The comments are useful to inform
  the student about strengths of their work and
  areas for further development in future
  assessments.
• Feed forward
• mostly what has been called feedback where a
  student has an opportunity to respond to the
  comments, e.g. a formative hand in
  constructive.

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VIDEO MOMENT
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Outline of SENLEF report

• Briefing Paper on formative assessment and
  feedback and self-regulation of learning
• Conceptual model
• 7 principles of good feedback practice
• Simple strategies
• 50 case studies of good practice
• Publication available on HEA website.

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How to conceptualise formative assessment
feedback?

• process that build up the students own skills
  and capacity to self-evaluate and self-correct.
  throughout u/g degree

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• SENLEF PROJECT - Student Enhanced Learning
  through Effective Feedback
• http//www.heacademy.ac.uk/ourwork/learning/assess
  ment/senlef

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Sadlers argument

• For feedback to benefit learning students must
  know
• 1. What good performance is (goals, criteria)
• 2. How current performance relates to good
  performance (compare)
• 3. How to act to close the gap
• Implies that students must already possess some
  of the same evaluative skills as the teacher
  (Sadler, 1983).

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Key message

• Formative assessment and feedback by others can
  only have an impact on learning when it
  influences a students own self-regulatory
  processes - whereby learners set goals (adapted
  from Boud, 1995).

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The Seven Feedback Principles

• How can assessment and feedback help to build a
  learners capacity to self-regulate?
• Self-regulated learning is an active constructive
  process whereby learners set goals for their
  learning and monitor, regulate, and control their
  cognition, motivation, and behaviour, guided and
  constrained by their goals and the contextual
  features of the environment. (Pintrich and Zusho,
  p64)

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1. Helps clarify what good performance is (goals,
standards, criteria)

• Difficult to use feedback to self-regulate if
  students dont understand goals
• Research
• Mismatches between tutors and students
  conceptions of goals/criteria (Hounsell, 1984
  Norton, 1990 Channock, 2000)
• Strategies
• Exemplars of performance (Orsmond et al, 2002)
• Mock marking of assessments
• Engage students in criteria - classroom/tutorials

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2. Facilitates development of self-assessment in
learning

• Key process in self-regulation is self-assessment
  
• Research
• Training in self-assessment improves exam
  performance (McDonald and Boud, 2003)
• SA integrated with external feedback improves
  performance. (Taras, 2003)
• Strategies
• Peer assessment, supporting reflection etc.
• Requesting feedback they would like

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3. Delivers high quality information to students
about their learning

• External feedback should help students trouble
  shoot and correct their own performance
• Research
• Shows feedback might be delayed, not relevant,
  overwhelming in quantity, focused on low level
  goals (Sadler, 1983)
• Strategies
• Offering corrective advice in terms of criteria
• Reader response theory (Lunsford, 1997) (3
  points praise sandwich PIE)

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4. Encourages teacher and peer dialogue around
learning.

• Students dont understand the feedback given by
  tutors ( essay is not sufficiently analytical)
  Channock, 2000 Hyland, 2000
• Research
• Ideal feedback two-way dialogical
  teacher-student (Laurillard, 2003) not enough
  teachers
• Strategies
• Classroom technologies (Nicol Boyle, 2003)
• Peer processes (Gibbs, 1999)
• Bring examples of good feedback and why it was
  useful

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5. Encourages positive motivational beliefs and
self-esteem.

• Feedback has positive or negative effects
  depending on type, delivery etc.
• Research
• Feeback as marks versus comments (Butler,
  19871988 Dweck, 2000).
• Strategies
• More low stakes assessments
• Marks only after feedback used

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6. Provides opportunities to close the gap
between current and desired performance.

• How do you ensure that students actually use the
  feedback information to improve.
• Research
• Little opportunity to resubmit (Boud, 2000)
• Strategies
• Feedback during the task (process)
• Action points and resubmissions.

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7. Provides information to teachers that can be
used to shape teaching.

• Being sensitive to learner needs
• Research
• Teachers dont necessarily adapt teaching to
  students needs (Ramsden, 1997)
• Strategies
• Angelo Cross (1990) one minute paper
• Classroom Technology (Boyle Nicol, 2003.
• Student-requested feedback

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• Helps clarify what good performance is (goals,
  standards, criteria)
• Facilitates development of self-assessment in
  learning
• Delivers high quality information to students
  about their learning
• Encourages teacher and peer dialogue around
  learning.
• Encourages positive motivational beliefs and
  self-esteem.
• Provides opportunities to close the gap between
  current and desired performance.
• Provides information to teachers that can be
  used to shape teaching.