Effective feedback-RO-treforest

© University of South Wales
Delivering Effective
Feedback:
While you are waiting…
Cryptic towns:
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Delivering Effective
Feedback:
Do’s and Don’ts for
Feedback
Richard Oelmann
CELT Seminar
(Pontypridd 29/2/16)

Richard Oelmann
• Centre for Excellence in Learning and
Teaching
• Senior Learning Technologist
• Previously – taught on Primary Initial Teacher
Training
• Previously – Deputy Head Teacher

Overview
• Why give feedback
• Types of feedback
• Do’s and Don’ts when giving feedback
• Examples of feedback content
• 10 strategies to engage students with
feedback by the HEA
• Further reading

What is feedback?
• Any response you make to student's efforts
eg
 Marks/Grades
 Written, annotations, comments
 Face-face, oral
• What about:
 Facial expressions,
 Tone of voice
• Even failure to give feedback is a form of
feedback

What is feedback?
Also:
Students' reactions to our feedback can, in
turn, serve as feedback to us.

Types of feedback
Feedback or Feedforward
Feedback is sometimes distinguished from feedforward.
– Feedback is intended to explain how a final grade was
assigned
– Feedforward is made earlier in the process and is
intended to point student in the right direction for
completion.
However, there's nothing that says you can't include both
types of information in any comments you make. Even grade-
related comments are useful if they help the student to
understand what to learn from the current assignment and
how to do better in the next one.

Types of feedback
Formative or Summative
Formative feedback is diagnostic information
given before the work is completed. Like
feedforward, it is intended to help the student
revise and improve the work.
Summative feedback is a final analysis of the
work, on which final grades are based. It can
also point toward improving future work of the
same type.

Why is feedback so important?
• Contributes to learning - when it is noticed
• Contributes even more to learning when the
learner reflects on the lessons for next time
• Advice originating from the student's own
recent work is more likely to be given
attention, understood and acted upon
• Fuels constructive reflection by the learner.

Why is feedback so important?
Feedback to the students on their assignments
is the single most powerful influence on student
achievement.
Gibbs and Simpson (2004)
Importance and quality of feedback shows up on
almost all student evaluations of teaching.

Feedback from the student's
perspective
What seems very clear to a tutor is
not always seen that way by the
students.
• Neha – Information value of feedback
"I'm taking a course in writing, but the
instructor's comments are all abbreviations!
Like, what does 'AWK' mean, anyway? She
gives me a grade, but I don't see where it
came from. How can I do better if I don't
understand?"

Feedback from the student's
perspective
Jack – Diagnostic value of feedback
"My instructor gives great feedback on our work. He has a list
of common mistakes that tells us what do to about them. He
uses the terms to mark. That way, I know how to correct my
own mistakes."
• Dan – The timing of feedback
"I had an instructor who gave us assignments, but didn't give
us feedback until it was too late. What good was that?! The
instructor blamed it on having to check his marking with the
course supervisor."

Your personal context and
characteristics
• Are there colleagues with whom you need to be
consistent?
• What is your natural tendency as a feedback-giver? Is this
kind of feedback always what is likely to help students the
most?

Quote
This feedback felt that the work had really
been looked at and evaluated personally.
A student in Ribchester et al (2008)
• Think about the times you have received
feedback on your own work.
• Was there a time when you found the
feedback to be really helpful? Or unhelpful?

Giving Effective
Feedback
The Do’s and
Don’ts

Timing

Amount

Mode

Audience

Choosing feedback content
Choosing the content of your feedback
involves choices about:
• Focus,
• Comparison,
• Function, and
• Valence – how things all tie together.

Focus

Comparison

Function

Valence

Examples of feedback contact

How to know if your feedback
is good?
Student response is the criterion against which you can
evaluate your own feedback.
Your feedback is good if:
• Your students do learn—their work does improve.
• Your students become more motivated—they believe
they can learn, they want to learn, and they take
more control over their own learning.
• Your classroom becomes a place where feedback,
including constructive criticism, is valued and viewed
as productive.

10 strategies to
engage students
with feedback by
the HEA
www.heacademy.ac.uk/resource/feedback-
toolkit-10-strategies-engage-students-feedback
https://

HEA – 10 Strategies
 Make it worth their while
 Build activities focussing on feedback into
class/tutorial time
 Be seen to monitor whether students are
reading and acting on feedback
 Involve students in actively doing something
with feedback
 Give audio feedback, with marks at the end

HEA – 10 Strategies
 Give feedback without, or before, marks
 Embed dialogue with students as part of the
feedback process
 Let feedback from one stage of an assessment
feed into the next
 Make sure your feedback is worth reading
 Make sure your feedback is high profile

Thank you
http://celt.southwales.ac.uk/does/af/
www.slideshare.net/RichardOelmann

Feedback content – Focus – Notes (Not for screen presentation)

Further Reading
• HEA Feedback Toolkit
https://www.epigeum.com/downloads/uct_accessible/us/06_m
ark/html/course_files/3_10.html
• Feedback Toolkit: 10 feedback resources
for your students
https://www.heacademy.ac.uk/sites/default/files/resources/10_
feedback_resources_for_your_students2.pdf

References
• How to Give Effective Feedback to Your Students by
Susan M. Brookhart
Chapter 2. Types of Feedback and Their
Purposes
• Marking, grading and giving feedback to students; giving
students feedback
https://www.epigeum.com/downloads/uct_accessible/us/06_
mark/html/course_files/3_10.html
• The Higher Education Academy – Assessment and Feedback

Feedback about the task - Notes
Feedback about the task includes information about errors—whether something is correct or incorrect. Feedback about the
task also includes information about the depth or quality of the work, often against criteria that are either explicit (for
example, criteria from a scoring rubric) or implicit in the assignment (for example, a written assignment should be well
written). Feedback about the task may include a need for more information (for example, "You should include more
information about the First Continental Congress in this report"). Feedback about the task can also include information
about neatness or format.
Feedback about the task has been found to be more powerful when it corrects misconceptions than when it alerts students
to lack of information (Hattie & Timperley, 2007). If a student doesn't know something, further instruction is more powerful
than feedback. One problem with feedback about the task is that it may not transfer to other tasks because it is specific to
the particular assignment. In that sense, although it contributes to better learning for the task at hand, task feedback does
not contribute to further learning as much as the second type, feedback about the process used to do the task.

Feedback about the process - Notes
Feedback about process gives students information about how they approached the task, information about the relationship
between what they did and the quality of their performance, and information about possible alternative strategies that would
also be useful. Some successful learners are able to translate feedback about the task into feedback about the process.
That is, given outcome feedback (knowledge of results), they can generate their own cognitive feedback (linking
characteristics of the task and their process with those results)(Butler & Winne, 1995). In effect, when teachers give
feedback about the process, they are scaffolding this kind of transfer for all students. This is a very powerful way to address
the needs of all students, helping them to acquire this "learning how to learn" skill. (See Chapter 7 for more about this.)

Feedback about self-regulation - Notes
Self-regulation is the process students use to monitor and control their own learning. Self-regulation can lead to students
seeking, accepting, and acting on feedback information—or not. Effective learners create internal routines that include
figuring out when they need more information, or an assessment or suggestions, and strategies for getting this feedback.
Less effective learners depend more on external factors, such as whether the teacher decides to give any feedback on this
or that assignment, for their information. Students are more willing to expend effort in getting and dealing with feedback if
they have confidence in themselves as learners, called self-efficacy, and confidence that the information will be useful and
thus worth the effort. Therefore, feedback about self-regulation is effective to the degree that it enhances self-efficacy.

Feedback about the person - Notes
Feedback about the person ("Smart girl!") is generally not a good idea, for two reasons. First, it doesn't contain information
that can be used for further learning, so it's not formative. Second, and more insidious, feedback about the person can
contribute to students believing that intelligence is fixed. This implies that achievement is something beyond the student's
control. The belief that intelligence is fixed removes the connection between student effort and achievement (Dweck, 2007). It
leads to a kind of academic fatalism. In contrast, feedback about the processes students use to do their work fosters the
belief that achievement is related to specific strategies, specific kinds of effort that are under the student's control, and not to
innate ability. This is not only better for learning—it's true! Figure 2.6 presents examples of good and bad choices about the
focus of feedback.

HEA 10 things - Notes

Make it worth their while!
• This presents a strategy which aims to engage students in
self-assessment and thereby develop their ability to make
informed judgements on their own work.
• The strategy involves giving feedback without marks, and
suggests an interesting approach to motivate students to
engage in critical reading of the feedback you have given
as they may be able to gain a few more marks in the
process.
• Phil Race is confident that engaging students in critical
reading of feedback means that most students will self-
assess to a mark which is within 5% of the tutor mark, but
the strategy could be time-consuming if a significant
number of students had guesstimated marks are outside
these parameters. Nevertheless, it is an interesting
approach, and one that is probably worth a try.
– Enabling and Motivating Student Self-Assessment -
Phil Race, Smart Feedback

Build activities focussing on
feedback into class - or
tutorial - time
• Students are encouraged to draw on the feedback received to
identify their:
– Strengths - 'the things that you did well and that you can
continue to do in future assessments'
– Needs - 'things that you think you need to do before the next
assessment to give you the best chance of improving your
marks'
– Opportunities - ' things that you got wrong or missed that
could have helped you to gain more marks' and
– Barriers - 'what you think could make it difficult to do the extra
things you think necessary'. (Sykes, A.E., 2010, p.9)
• They are encouraged to build the points emerging from this into
an Action Plan for future development.
• It can be found at:
– SNOB Analysis - University of Salford -
http://www.careers.salford.ac.uk/cms/resources/uploads/File/
Making%20the%20most%20of%20Feedback(1).pdf - page 9

Be seen to monitor whether
students are reading and
acting on Feedback
• The strategy gives students a specific reason to look at
and read the feedback they receive, and to work with key
guidance for improvement from one assignment to
improve their work on the next. In this way FeedBACK is
turned into FeedFORWARD.
• The expectation to comment on progress made in
attempting to improve on each of their chosen points,
students are encouraged to be self-critical and to evaluate
their own progress.
• By commenting on the points raised, and responding to
students’ self-evaluation, within your next feedback, you
place value on their engagement in the task of acting on
feedback and are seen to be ‘monitoring’ their
involvement.

Involve students in actively
doing something with the
feedback
• Don't just assume that students know what to DO with
their feedback comments; ensure that they know how to
use them to enhance their learning:
• encourage reflection on what the feedback means and
how they can act on advice;
• encourage students to compare tutor feedback with their
own impression of their work;
• involve students in evaluating their next assignment
using points arising in previous feedback;
• develop Action Plans.
• An example Feedback Action Plan can be found in;
Race, P. (2008) Building on feedback: document adapted
from ‘How to Get a Good Degree: 2nd edition and ‘How to
Study’ published by Blackwell in 2003. Available online
from: http://phil-race.co.uk/students/

Give audio feedback, with
the marks at the end
• Students have been shown to respond well to audio
feedback - in pilots they have reported that they find it
more personal, more detailed, and expressed in a way that
it makes it easier to understand what is being said about
their work. There are reports that students are altogether
more likely to listen to feedback than to read feedback,
and to return to the same piece of feedback more
frequently when it is audio feedback.
• Thus some experience suggests that just by giving
recorded audio feedback, students are more likely to pay
attention. However, another strategy which can be
incorporated is to keep the actual mark for the work until
sometime towards the end of the audio feedback, so that
they have to listen through to find out their grade.

Give feedback without, or
before, marks
• 'If the mark is good, they smile and file ... If it’s low, they frown and
bin it' (Race, P. 2012)
• If feedback is given by itself, without, or ahead of, the mark, there
is a strong probability that this will encourage them to read the
feedback as the only way to get a sense of how well they have
achieved. One 'window' might be between your initial marking of
the work and the completion of the full moderation process of
second marking and scrutiny by the External Examiner.
• Could your initial feedback be given immediately to students,
clearly flagged as provisional feedback, before the final results are
released?
• A more extended strategy involves building reflection n feedback
into the process by which students receive their marks:
• University of Westminster (2010) Case study 8: Reflecting on
feedback, in Effective Assessment in a Digital Age, JISC.
Available online at:
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/programmes/elearning/digi
assess_rereflectingfdback.pdf

Embed some dialogue with
students within your
feedback process
• Traditionally feedback can feel like something which is done TO
students; tutors write feedback which is given to students as
passive recipients, a process which does not empower or engage
students, especially when combined with the difficulties they may
have in understanding the feedback we write. The NUS is in
favour of strategies in which we ask students to indicate what
aspect of their work they would like feedback on, and include
reference to this within our comments.
• To do this, encourage students to think about feedback IN
ADVANCE and target your feedback accordingly - when they
submit an assessment ask them to:
– either indicate what they would like feedback on, which may
be an academic skill (e.g. structure of argument) they are
trying to develop;
– or to indicate what aspects of an assessment they found
difficult.
• However, it will also be important to draw attention to key issues
in the work which they may have missed. (Irons 2007, p.76).

Let feedback from one stage
of an assessment feed into
the next
• Within some courses, there is a tradition of assessing only
by one long assignment at the end of a module. Given the
length of time between assignment submission and
completion of the university moderation processes, there
can be some considerable delay before students receive 5
• their feedback, their attention may have moved on, and
the assignment feedback may no longer feel relevant.
• This can be tackled by the use of two-stage assignments
in which both stages 'count' but where feedback from
Stage 1 feeds into the work for Stage 2. Students will at
least then read the feedback for Stage 1, and hopefully act
on it. Having done so, they will hopefully see the value
also of reading the feedback for stage 2.

Make sure your feedback is
worth reading!
• Throughout this Feedback Toolkit, various features of
Effective Feedback are explored. Have a look at those,
and try to make sure your feedback reflects as many as
possible of such features. For an overview, visit the page
'What makes feedback effective?'
• Listen to student views of what they do and do not find
useful in feedback - a good overview is found in the Higher
Education Academy video in which students discuss their
experiences of feedback - Avaliable online at:
http://vimeo.com/channels/154640/9319496

Make sure your feedback is
high profile
• One of the findings emerging from the current focus on
feedback is that students do not always recognise the
different forms of feedback that teachers provide. So,
when giving or discussing feedback, in tutorials, in class,
in email or online forum discussion, don't be afraid to say
"This is Feedback!"
• Similarly, if it is not yet normal practice where you work,
explore whether it would be possible to send students their
feedback by email. They are much more likely to read the
feedback if it is PUSHED to them than if they have to seek
it out and collect it.

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