• Learning and Feedback: what is the link?

Paul Orsmond

Stephen Merry

Biologist

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Observations Regarding use of Tutor Feedback

• Task focussed – improved performance

• ‘Form’ not ‘Function’ orientated

• Little tutor evaluation – feedback loop can be open or closed

• May have formative feedback during tasks completion – as part of the learning process

Common Concerns Regarding use of Tutor Feedback

• From a student perspective feedback comments might– Be ambiguous or cryptic (e.g. why)– Be provided in an unfamiliar discourse (e.g. this essay

is not sufficiently analytical)– Not be understood as students do not share their

tutor’s conceptions of the subject– Not be understood as students do not share their

tutor’s conceptions of assignment requirements• Time dependent although promptness of

feedback is irrelevant if it is not understood• Not collected by students

What do students do with tutor feedback?

Diverse Student Experiences of Tutor Feedback

• ‘I tend to look at it more as a scientist…[from] that point of view….this is my way of assessing feedback’

• ‘Some of them [tutors] actually put it [criteria] on a cover sheet on the front and their [standards] are circled’

• ‘Looking back over previous grades and what comments they made about it, I kind of got in my mind what level I think my essays are generally at’. This can be seen as ipsative feedback

Diverse Student Experiences of Tutor Feedback

• ‘Once I had a problem [regarding feedback] with my dissertation supervisor. I thought I’d done things wrong…but I spoke to other people who were also his project students…and had the same problem...It wasn't a case that we were doing something wrong...it was more the feedback he was giving wasn't relevant to what we were trying to say'

Diverse Student Experiences of Tutor Feedback

‘I did this essay and I wrote something…………..then she [the tutor] wrote something like ‘no actually it’s this’, but it was just what I’d written in different words and I was just like what!’

Diverse Student Experiences of Tutor Feedback

• I’ve spoken to friends … and the chances are they’ve been marked by a different tutor… not being able to talk to the tutor [who marked their friend’s work] … so talking to friends you … gives you broader perspectives of what [tutors] are after.

Regulation

• High achieving students are good at self-assessment and therefore good internal regulators of learning. These students are becoming…. They are developing an identity

• Non-high achieving students are poor at self-assessment and require external regulations. What are they becoming?

Questions

Perhaps we shouldn’t give feedback to non-high achieving students?

Question

How do students learning outside the formal curriculum?

Diverse student experiences of non-tutor feedback

• University students have different feedback dialogues some– In university with peers – ‘If they’re doing the same

course as you and they don’t understand a word you’re going on about, then you know you’re totally off course…….They may criticise (you), but somebody else might have a greater understanding (of the subject) and you know that they’ve got a greater understanding and so you know that you’ve got to sort of balance (their view and yours)’

Diverse Student Experiences of Non-Tutor Feedback

• Patterns of participation– ‘She (a friend) knows a bit more than me about

experimentation and what you can and can’t do….we’d do it (make the poster) together in the LRC (Faculty Learning Resource Centre) and I’d put things on it and then she said “Oh that looks good there and that kind of thing”.

– ‘I do it (talk to others) but sometimes it’s confusing…..sometimes it’s just sort of filtering out what I feel is useful and what is not.’

Diverse Student Experiences of Non-Tutor Feedback

• Outside university within learning ‘networks’– ‘When I take my dad down the pub on a

Friday night we meet his friends and they really challenge me on my work, they want to know what I’m doing and they tell me what they think………..I like being challenged.’

How do students learning outside the formal curriculum?

• Learning is 'situated‘. This does not mean that learning 'needs' to be located in a particular location; instead, situated refers to the webs of social relationships which influence how we attend to, value and interpret communications (e.g. feedback) that we get.

How do students learning outside the formal curriculum?

• Talking – negotiating and re- negotiating meaning and understanding

• Developing ‘participating in practice’

• Identity - may be seen as derived from both personal and community beliefs

• Use of a specific language

• Link between social capital and the development of social networks

Learning in terms of tutor feedback

The WE: Communities of Practice

• Tutor feedback, once it passes into the student community, is no longer a tutor constructed artefact, but it becomes part of what Lave and Wenger (1991) term a learning curriculum. This means that the feedback becomes part of the group of learning resources (shared repertoire) that students are going to use (or choose to ignore) as part of their overall learning.

Learning through Negotiation and Practice

• Feedback, an institutional artefact, enters the community through joint enterprise negotiations and a community’s understanding of meaning will be established. This meaning may differ from that desired by the tutor

A common factor in student learning is self-assessment

Self-Assessment

• How am I doing? Is this enough? Is this right? How can I tell? Should I go further? In the act of questioning is the act of judging ourselves and making decisions about the next step. This is self-assessment’ (Boud, 1995)

• The student is the critical connection between assessment and learning (Earl, 2008). Assessment as learning.

• Current feedback practice lacks self-assessment

Question

Can you teach self-assessment?

Question

Can modules be designed on self-assessment principles?

Working with the GOALS Process

• The GOALS process is a framework that can be used to guide students in self-assessment

• Within this context, the GOALS process can be used by teaching tutors or students.

• The GOALS process is a way of visualising the self-assessment process.

Working with the GOALS Process

• G = what outcomes do I need to Grasp. • Tutor outcomes• Students own outcomes, • Tutors and students can co-create what

outcomes need to be grasped and this could form part of the feedforward process.

• The outcomes – – academic learning, – professional development – life-long learning,

Working with the GOALS Process

• O = Ownership of self learning.

• Ownership involves recognising/understanding the answer to certain questions such as ‘what do I know about…..?’, ‘what do I want to know about…..?’ and ‘how am I doing..?’.

Working with the GOALS Process

• In recognising what you need to know you are able to identify A = What specific Actions you need to take in order to establish what you need to know.

• Actions required in terms of assignments often involve:– understanding criteria, – recognising who to speak to in terms of tutors and peers – identification of interests or approaches that need to be taken.

• Ipsative feedback – improvement on previous work – a different type of judgement

Working with the GOALS Process

• L = Learning evaluation. – making judgements perhaps about feedback

received from tutors/peers.– ownership judgements - ‘How do I understand

‘X’ differently now, compared to when I started the assignment?’

Working with the GOALS Process

• S = Strategies for moving on as a result of their learning. While learning can be understood in general terms, perhaps in terms of change and the desire to seek meaning, it may also be understood in personal ways, with each individual seeking a way forward, a personal strategy for development.

Back to the Beginning

Q. Learning and Feedback: what is the link?

A. Self-assessment

GOALS Activity 1

• Form into groups of 4 and take a few moments to reflect on the presentation.

• Discuss your thoughts with others in your group. Identify 3 things that interested you.

• General feedback• Any comments about the link between

self-assessment and feedback? What other ways can feedback usage be seen in terms of students?

GOALS Activity 2

• In different groups think about the notion of students using feedback.– Look at how you develop assignments and communicate with students

– an exemplar assignment is available

– How does assignment design and implementation help students engage with feedback

• Do we need to consider wider than assignment design – module design?

• Wider still curriculum design?