After the task: “Feedback on my work has been prompt”

It is widely accepted that students are most receptive to feedback when it is received quickly. Some forms of assessment task support almost immediate feedback (for example, online tests) but most assignments like essays or group projects take longer to mark and, especially in large classes, feedback often appears weeks after the submission date. By this time students have moved on to another task and are much less receptive.

Phil Race and Sally Brown (2005) suggest a methodology for giving feedback to students within 24 hours of completion of an assignment:

  1. Ask all students to submit their work in person at the beginning of a scheduled lecture.
  2. Once all the submissions have been handed in, distribute a printed sheet to the class which contains explanations for frequently-asked questions, illustrations of good answers to essay components, models solutions, examples of useful sources for more information etc.
  3. Allow the class to read through the sheet
  4. Talk through key issues on the sheet, reinforcing the feedback, then continue the lecture as normal
  5. When you mark the class submissions you can avoid writing detailed comments on each script by referring to relevant sections on the printed feedback sheet

Other methods for improving the turn-around time in marking include making effective use of technologies:

  • Using pre-defined banks of electronic feedback to address common problems
  • Emailing feedback to students instead of leaving annotated scripts in the departmental office for collection
  • Posting comments on general class attainment in assignments on a message-board
  • Provide a class-wide report on assignments including common mistakes and a model answer instead of annotating every script. The class report can form the basis of a face-to-face class debriefing session and discussion around the task

 

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