Feedback

^{Figure 1. Distribution of feedback across different stages of the module, semester or programme.}

This more evenly distributed feedback aligns with ideas from the literature to ‘flip’ feedback, enhance dialogue and interaction, which shifts the focus from ‘retrospective feedback to prospective feedforward’ (Hounsell, 2015, p. 2).

This involves rethinking when and how feedback can be provided, such that there is a future horizon in mind (Reimann, Sadler and Sambell 2019). Therefore, feedback should be a core aspect of curriculum or module design.

The following sections provide guidance to support the design of feedback strategies for different stages of the learning experience. These strategies aim to stimulate thinking about the use of different types of feedback and practical approaches to more evenly distribute feedback across the module or programme.

Guidance: understanding the requirements and the standards
(Stage 1 – Early)

This stage in the learning experience is usually before the students have produced any work of their own to gain feedback on, but they may have prior experience of similar assessments from a previous module or context that can be drawn on.

Guidance regarding the type of assessment (i.e., laboratory report, presentation, essay, examination) in terms of customs and examples of what this type of assessment looks like should be a key focus in this early stage.

Examples

• Get the students in a session to work with and assess previous pieces of work (their own from a prior experience or of others). They can do this with the specific requirements and criteria for the current assessment in mind.
• Provide ongoing guidance and clarification of the standards through the use of Canvas quizzes and tests or through advice from staff using individual or group tutorial activities.

Formative feedback: developing evaluative expertise
(Stage 2 – Mid)

At the mid-stage of the learning experience the students should have undertaken activities that produces specific work that relates to a future summative assessment. These activities should engage students in worthwhile, long-term learning and deep approaches to learning which are aligned with the relevant ways of thinking and practising of the subject domain (Carless 2007).

These formative activities should be designed so that students benefit from the associated feedback on them for future activities or assessments. Only through repeated participation in discipline-specific practices, and the informal feedback this generates, will students be able to develop the tacit know-how which underpins an ability to think, talk, write and act like a subject expert (Reimann, Sambell, Sadler and Kreber, 2022).

It is feedback on this work that can be used to help the student determine where they are in terms of the desired level of performance and start to develop their own evaluative expertise. Evaluative judgement of students can be developed through a range of approaches including self-assessment, peer feedback and review, use of rubrics and use of exemplars (Tai et al. 2018).

Examples

• Get students to rank order different pieces of work in relation to one another, including their own and then discuss the decisions and relative merits.
• Undertake peer review activity in small groups to discuss and comment on one another’s work and how it relates to the criteria.
• Co-construct marking criteria by getting students to devise, discuss and agree criteria and then drafted their own definitions of poor and excellent quality based on these criteria.

Summative feedback: providing information to support feedforwards
(Stage 3 – End)

There is a significant amount of time spent and focus upon feedback in the form of written comments on summative work. The literature in this area focusses upon student perceptions of written comments and strategies for better quality of feedback comments (e.g. Winstone et al. 2017). In the traditional model, this type of feedback is conceptualised in a limited way and many authors have described it as ‘provision of information’ (Sambell, McDowell and Montgomery 2013, p. 73) or as ‘dangling data’ (Sadler 1989, p. 121).

If we are to move away from a primary focus on this type of feedback and start to re-distribute feedback across the learning experience then we need to actually reduce the focus upon this stage. Hence rather than doing more or making the comments better, it would be better to re-invest this time into Stage 1 and Stage 2.

In order to enhance feedback in Stage 3, it requires a shift in thinking away from justification of the grade and towards feedforward for a future horizon (Reimann, Sadler and Sambell, 2019). Therefore it is important to be clear on what the specific future horizon is: Is the future horizon a different module with a similar form of assessment next semester or is it the same subject module at the next level of study or is it future employment?

Understanding this and also planning these future horizons is very much what the idea of programme-level assessment design is all about (Jessop, 2014).

Example

• A highly simplistic strategy for feedback at this end-stage is to provide a highlighted rubric, along with three bullet points that offer ways they could improve next time. The rubric gives an indication of the standard of the current work in relation to the assessment criteria and the three bullet point support improvement but should be for a specific targeted piece of work.

Recommendation: Practical next step

• Feedback should be central and evenly distributed across the learning experience.
• This requires feedback to be ‘designed-in’ to the fabric of modules or programmes with thought being given to the nature of the feedback and the specific stage of the learning experience at which it takes place.
• The information below provides a method to help with this design and capture the stage, nature and proportion of different feedback activities.
• Use this to start module/programme planning by mapping these activities in relation to the specific desired learning outcomes (the other aspects of the learning experience can then be built around this i.e. teaching sessions, online materials, assessments) can be considered around this. Ultimately, such an approach will ensure that feedback is more central to learning design and more even distributed across the learning experience.

Mapping template for tutors to consider the feedback activities at different stages of the learning experience

Specific example for scientific report writing.

Stage 1

Activity: Reflection upon a previously submitted scientific report and re-visiting feedback. Consider requirements of current assessment and any similarities or differences.

Nature of feedback: Self-review and internalising previous feedback and starting to plan for a specific forthcoming scientific report.

Proportion: 20%

Stage 2

Activity: Produce a scientific report and submit as a formative assessment. A notional 10% could be given for submission or a design where the summative cannot be attempted without this submission. Seminar activity used for review and discussion.

Nature of feedback: Peer review and self-review in relation to a model answer or submissions from previous years (across a range).

Proportion: 50%

Stage 3

Activity: Summative submission of a scientific report.

Nature of feedback: Tutor written comments that indicate specific improvements for the next scientific report in Semester 2.

Proportion: 30%