Transcript Student Feedback and Assessment

Student Feedback
and Assessment
Introduction: “It was not prompt and it didn’t
help”
Peter Chalk
Academic Leader, Undergraduate Centres,
LondonMet
HEA-ICS Workshop - April 10th 2008
London Metropolitan University
2006 & 2007 National Student Surveys
Questions
2006
2007
% average agreement
1-4
The teaching on my course
5-9
Assessment and feedback
10-12 Academic support
81
61
69
82
62
71
13-15
16-18
19-21
22
69
78
76
80
71
80
77
81
Organisation and management
Learning resources
Personal development
Overall satisfaction
The figures in this table are for students at universities
and colleges in England.
What do students think?
• From NSS (England 2007):
– 81% satisfied overall with their experience, but
– 62% with assessment/ feedback, the lowest
category
– Questions 7, 8, 9: Feedback prompt, detailed,
helped (53%, 58%, 53% respectively: i.e. the
lowest scores)
It was not
prompt and it
didn’t help…
The other side…
• Evidence that students aren’t engaging with
feedback either:
– They don’t read it
– They don’t understand it
– They don’t use it
– Gibbs & Simpson 2002
1. Prompt and timely feedback
One of several initiatives at LondonMet:
• Higher Education Orientation module: formative
assessment early in first semester
• Reflective self-evaluation in PDP
• Module tutor can refer student to their Personal
Academic Adviser or to the Learning Development
Unit
2. Early return of
marked course work
• Shorter semesters - late deadlines can mean
no feedback before exam
• Students Union requested that annotated
course work should be returned
• New procedure agreed for course work with
deadline before week 9 – mark plus
annotation to be given back in class
3. Scan feedback & return on-line
• Problem: feedback often written on course work
cover sheet but not marked until module has ended
• Cover sheet copies returned to students, often by
collection from office or u/g Centre, but often not
collected
• Solution? Proposal: scan cover sheet and store in
student record/portal
• Link to electronic PDP in future? VLE feedback?
Record feedback & return online
• “I use freeware called Audacity to record
audio comments on group coursework for two
modules (one at undergraduate level and one
at postgraduate level).
• The audio files were uploaded on Weblearn
and access to each file was given only to the
group members by using the selective
release tool.
• The feedback from students has been
positive.” (Volpe 2008)
4. Feedback & personal
development (action) planning
• Personal Development Portfolio (PDP)
includes sections for action planning based
on feedback and results
• PDP related assessment and completion
linked to core spine modules at levels 1
(HEO), 2 (Employability), 3 (Project)
• Opportunity to discuss with Personal
Academic Adviser in u/g Centre
Problems
with
engaging
students…
• From Millar & Handley, Oxford Brookes
study and Gibbs & Simpson 2002:
• Students don’t read their feedback
• Students don’t understand their feedback
• Students don’t use their feedback
How?
5. London Met’s University
Assessment Framework
• Published June 2004
(www.londonmet.ac.uk/capd/resources)
• Advice on feedback included:
– “[certain kinds of] feedback can draw attention
away from the learning task” (Sims-Knight &
Upchurch 2001), and
– Negative feedback can de-motivate.
• Therefore start & end positive, suggest
actions, be explicit, give examples
Additional Framework points
• Feedback linked to purpose: diagnostic/
formative/ summative
• SENLEF (Student Enhanced Learning
through Effective Feedback) Project (LTSN)
feedback principles:
– Facilitates reflection/ dialogue, clarifies
expectation, provides opportunities, quality
information, motivate, shape teaching
Feeding
forward…
• Feedback may be too late to make a difference,
key could be feeding forward
• Phased course work, or opportunity to discuss
and re-draft
• Peer feedback can be useful, encourage study
groups
• Large classes – summary, pro-formas, CAA
(computer aided assessment)
Student engagement with
feedback – how improve?
• Feedback often not read or understood (Lea &
Street 1998 – references in Framework document)
– Note & raise in class
– Submit drafts
– Feedback without a grade read more carefully
(Black & William 1998)
– Self-assess
– Provide grade after feedback completed
– Staged formative assessment (Cooper 2000)
6. Law department – exam
feedback
• Not published, information by email (Mills 2008):
• “individual feedback on exams after their results are
published”
• Uses benchmark and blank feedback forms
• “extended office hours and allocated [individual] feedback
days“
• “after exam, many of us then put these generic answers on
our Weblearn sites (together with the question papers)”
• Tracking shows most widely used part of VLE
• Should actual scripts and feedback forms be given back to
students?
7. MSc Student
Assessment
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
London Met & Liverpool Hope
Write Now CETL & CAPD
Includes module on e-Assessment
Delivered & assessed on-line, feedback via VLE
Targeted at HE staff, add on to PGCE
Starts in 2008/9; modular
www.writenow.ac.uk/mscassessment.html
MSc Student Assessment modules
• Theory and Philosophy of Assessment
• Assessment for Learning
• Rethinking Assessment: A Critical Approach to
Contemporary Practice
• Researching Assessment
• Writing for Assessment
• E-Assessment
• Quality Assurance in Assessment
• Negotiated Learning
MSc Student Assessment aims
• “enable participants to experience a variety of
assessment methods from a student’s perspective”
• “peer and self-assessment will be included
alongside tutors as assessment sources, thus
integrating formative feedback from a variety of
sources [and] are considered essential to develop
self-directed learning and sustainable assessment”
• “good assessment and feedback practice modelled
in the programme”
MSc Student Assessment outcomes
• Develop scholarship in assessment and enable HE
educators to:
– systematically apply assessment methods that are
underpinned by evidence;
– challenge existing practices from an informed theoretical
understanding;
– conduct research in student assessment;
– enhance the participants’ employability in the field of
learning and teaching in higher education.
8. Continuous assessment means
continuous feedback
• Continuous assessment has a bad name,
associated with instructional method, and
with overloading students, but
– Can mean continuous feedback
– Using a weekly log (cf science labs), MCQs
– Was used on a first year programming module
action research project with apparent success
(Chalk et al 2005, thanks to F Culwin LSBU)
& in Business School (weekly graded exercises
on-line, Holley & Andrew 2007)
Online
feedback
• Advantages
– Involve peer feedback, e.g. using IM (chat)
– Teacher feedback (a)synchronously, stored and
shareable online – ‘just in time’ feedback?
– Use internet to seek feedback
• Disadvantages
– Possible plagiarism, problem of authentication
– Staff resistant to perceived 24/7 expectations
References
• Black, P & William, D (1998) ‘Assessment and classroom
learning’, Assessment in Education, 5.1, 70-74
• Chalk, P, et al (2005) ‘Introducing a virtual learning
environment and learning objects into higher education
courses’, Internat. J. of Learning Technology 1.4, 383–398
• Cooper, N J (2000) ‘Facilitating learning from formative
feedback in level 3 assessment’. Assessment and Evaluation in
Higher Education, 25.3, 279-291.
• Gibbs, G. and Simpson, C. (2002) Does your assessment
support your students’ learning? Milton Keynes: Open
University.
• Holley, D & Andrew, D (2007) ‘An Approach to Continuous
Assessment: Students enjoying their assessment experience!’
BbWorld Europe Conference, Nice, France 27/2/07
References (continued)
• Lea, M & Street, B (1998) ‘Student writing in higher
education: an academic literacies approach’, Studies in Higher
Education, 23.2, 157-172.
• London Metropolitan University (2004) University
Assessment Framework, accessed 26.2.08:
www.londonmet.ac.uk/capd/resources
• Mills, T (2008) personal communication.
• SENLEF (undated) ‘Student Enhanced Learning through
Effective Feedback’, accessed 26.2.08:
www.heacademy.ac.uk/ourwork/learning/assessment/senlef
• Sims-Knight, J E and Upchurch, R L (2001) ‘What’s wrong
with giving students feedback?’, Proceedings of the American
Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference.
• Volpe, G (2008) personal communication.