Using technology to enhance student engagement with feedback

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Using technology to enhancestudent engagement
with feedback

• Stuart Hepplestone and Helen ParkinQuality
  Enhancement Student Success

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Agenda
Time Agenda Agenda
1315-1320 Workshop opening and agenda Welcome and introduction to the workshop
1320-1325 Activity 1 Reflecting on your practice
1325-1335 Presentation Technology, Feedback, Action! research project
1335-1350 Activity 2 Technology, Feedback, Action! and the Seven Principles of Good Feedback Practice
1350-1400 Presentation and Activity 3 Challenging practice and action planning
1400 Workshop closing Participant questions and comments
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About this workshop

• Reflect on your current feedback practice
• Consider
• Technology, Feedback, Action! findings1
• Seven Principles of Good Feedback Practice2
• Develop an action plan for transforming feedback
  practice
• 1 http//tinyurl.com/tfaproject
• 2 Nicol, D.J. and Macfarlane-Dick, D. (2006)
  Formative assessment and self-regulated
  learning a model and seven principles of good
  feedback practice, Studies in Higher Education,
  31 2, 199-218

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Activity 1 Reflecting on your practice

• 5 minutes, in small groups
• what feedback methods or techniques you currently
  use, support or promote?
• thinking about your current feedback practice
• what works well?
• what doesn't work as well?

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Technology, Feedback, Action!

• Potential of technology-enabled feedback to
  improve learning
• Evaluate logistical and learning benefits of
• online publication of feedback and grades via the
  Blackboard Grade Centre
• adaptive release of marks through Assignment
  Handler
• linking feedback to assessment criteria using
  anelectronic Feedback Wizard
• Semi-structured interviews, 23 undergraduates
• Computer Networks
• Diagnostic Radiography
• Events Management
• Psychology

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Online publication of grades and feedback/
Blackboard Grade Centre

• pushes feedback to students removing the burden
  to seek out feedback from tutors
• allows control over how, when and where feedback
  is received
• students respond to feedback when emotionally
  ready and in privacy
• thoughtfulness and legibility of typed feedback
• prompt return of feedback making it current and
  meaningful
• students are more likely to revisit feedback
  stored alongside their learning when completing
  future assignments
• students monitor progression and performance

You dont have to share it with everyone whereas
if you are in a seminar and everyones talking
about what they got you kind of have to feel the
pressure to join in whereas if you get it on
Blackboard you can see it at your own leisure
It obviously makes it a lot more beneficial to me
as a student to receive feedback in a much more
legible formtyped feedback is much better than
written feedback, because you can read it.
Lecturers have a tendency to scrawl
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Adaptive release of grades/Assignment Handler

• learning benefits acknowledged when purpose fully
  understood
• students like to receive theirfeedback and
  grades in close proximity
• students do produce action plans from their
  feedback but this is a subconscious approach
  Assignment Handler provides a space to formalise
  this process
• emphasises the importance of reflection
• enhances student engagement with their feedback

If I have to reflect on the feedback before
receiving the grade then it sticks in my mind a
bit longer, the feedback I receive, the points
that I am going to use and its a little bit
easier to remember when Im working on my next
assignment
Yeah its just stored in my memory. I dont tend
to write action plans down. I tend to retain
things in my memory and then if I need to look
something up I can usually remember where it is
that I found it before
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Linking feedback to assessment criteria

• feedback grids are most effective when
  supplementary to in-context feedback
• identify strengths and weaknesses in a cohesive
  and legible way
• use of assessment criteria to identify learning
  targets
• offers a level of transparency of how overall
  grade is calculated

If you just get a percentage for a mark out of
20 or whatever then it doesnt really give you
anything. Whereas if you understand the process
that the lecturer has gone through with regards
to how hes got to that figure it gives you a
bit more of a basis as to how or why theyve got
to that point
You could really clearly see what you had to do
for the next one and where you could actually
improve
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Seven principles of good feedback(Nicol and
Macfarlane-Dick, 2006)

• helps clarify what good performance is (goals,
  criteria, expected standards)
• facilitates the development of self-assessment
  (reflection) in learning
• delivers high quality information to students
  about their learning
• encourages teacher and peer dialogue around
  learning
• encourages positive motivational benefits and
  self-esteem
• provides opportunities to close the gap between
  current and desired performance
• provides information to teachers that can be used
  to help shape the teaching
• Nicol, D.J. and Macfarlane-Dick, D. (2006)
  Formative assessment and self-regulated
  learning a model and seven principles of good
  feedback practice, Studies in Higher Education,
  31 2, 199-218

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Activity 2 seven principles of good feedback

• 15 minutes, in small groups
• identify which feedback activities best match
  each of the seven principles of good feedback
  practice

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Best practice guides and short report
Available for download from http//tinyurl.com/tfa
project or search http//www.heacademy.ac.uk/Evide
nceNet/resources
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Putting into practiceOnline publication of
feedback and grades

• Find out what tools/techniques are available for
  use at your institution
• Who needs access you, students, teaching team,
  admin staff
• Are you publishing provisional grades or waiting
  until after assessment boards? Tell students the
  status of grades
• Ensure students can access feedback for duration
  of their study, or
• tell students how long it will be available to
  them
• Provide information to students about when
  feedback will be available, and the format it
  will be delivered in
• Promote effective techniques for storage and
  retrieval of feedback

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Putting into practiceAdaptive release of grades

• Find out what tools/techniques are available for
  use at your institution
• Promote educational benefits of feedback for
  learning, and
• provide clear guidance to students
• Define the boundaries of your assessments at the
  outset, outlining student responsibilities
• Assessment strategies should provide
  opportunities for feed forward to any future
  assessment

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Putting into practiceLinking feedback to
assessment criteria

• Find out what tools/techniques are available for
  use at your institution
• Make assessment criteria available from the
  outset
• enables students to complete and self-assess
  their work
• Accompany generic statements with individual
  comments
• Standard comments should not just reaffirm the
  grade
• Write feedback in the context of the students'
  original work

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Activity 3 Your action plan

• 5 minutes, in small groups
• how will you change your feedback practice to
  make it more innovative?
• what support and resources will you need to make
  this happen?

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Thank you any questions?

• S.J.Hepplestone_at_shu.ac.uk

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Adaptive release of grades
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Sample feedback sheet
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Assessment timeline
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