Adapted from REAP and the Viewpoints Project Help clarify good performance (goals, criteria, standards) Do your students understand the assessment criteria

Adapted from REAP and the Viewpoints Project

Help clarify good performance (goals, criteria, standards)

• Do your students understand the assessment criteria that you use? • Do they understand the standards required to achieve a particular grade for

each criterion or overall? • Do you discuss these with them before they start the task? • If you do, are the students able to state these in their own words?

Research has shown that students who engage with assessment criteria and standards are more likely to be able to manage their own learning. For example, Rust et al. (2003) found that by working with students in their first term on assessment, assessment criteria and marking, that there was a significant increase in the marks in the final assessment, compared with students who had not taken part in the exercise.

Adapted from REAP and the Viewpoint project

Some ways to do this... Technologies to consider…

Provide clear definitions of what is required for each task Screen Recording Tools/ Sound Recording

Provide explicit marking criteria and standards Screen Recording Tools/ Referencing and Citation

Provide opportunities for discussion and reflection about the criteria and standards before students start the task

Collaboration Tools/ Online Testing

Students put assessment criteria into their own words Collaboration Tools/ Online Testing/ Referencing and Citation

Students generate own criteria and standards and compare to staff criteria Collaboration Tools/ Online Testing

Provide model answers and opportunities for students to compare their own work against these

Screen Recording Tools/ Written Feedback Tools/ Peer to Peer Tools

Explain the rationale for the assessment task Screen Recording Tools/ Sound Recording

Marking exercises where students look at examples of work of different standards from a previous year to identify a rank order and why

Online Testing/ Written Feedback Tools/ Peer to Peer Tools


Encourage 'time and effort' on challenging learning tasks

• Are your assessments designed to encourage students to work in and out of class throughout the semester or year?

• Can the students see the relevance of the assessment task – is it an authentic assessment?

Spreading activities either as discrete pieces of work or as components of a single piece of work throughout the module balances the student workload and can encourage deep learning. This approach also provides opportunities for ongoing feedback. Even if marks are attached to the individual elements (summative assessment), the activities will also be formative assessments, because students should be able to build on the feedback provided for subsequent stages or elements.Although a particularly useful approach to use with first year students, this can be extended to students in other years.

Some ways to do this... Technologies to consider…

Students complete a number of small summative assessments with regular feedback

Online Testing/ Written Feedback Tools

Group work activities or large assessment broken down into smaller tasks. Progress is monitored and feedback provided in a staged way over the course of the module

Collaboration Tools/ Written Feedback Tools/ Peer to Peer Tools

Get students to set their own schedule for completing an assignment task with milestones. Marks could be awarded if the student delivers as planned and on time

Written Feedback Tools

Portfolio of activities that is taken in regularly – the activities could become progressively more challenging

Portfolio Tools

Regular activities to be completed in class Interactive Voting/ Lecture Participation

Provide opportunities to practise skills before doing the assessed work Online Testing/ Written Feedback Tools

Mock exams or provide opportunities for students to do past exam questions with feedback in a safe environment

Online Testing/ Screen Recording

Staged final year projects – literature review delivered first Online Submission

Have students prepare basic material prior to a session and use the time for more in depth activities

Collaboration Tools

Explain the rationale for the assessment task Screen Recording Tools/ Sound Recording


Deliver high quality feedback

• What kind of feedback do you provide?• How does it encourage students to assess and correct themselves?

It is important that students have the opportunity to learn from the feedback provided by staff. That learning however, may be enhanced by high quality feedback. Students are less likely to act on poor quality feedback. Students’ issues with feedback include the time it takes to receive feedback after submitting the work, understanding the feedback that has been given – this could be the language used, the handwriting, not understanding the abbreviated shorthand, or the grade. Summary sheet comments should be explicit enough for the student to act on them intelligently. For example, does a student know what ‘your spelling needs some attention’ or ‘much of this work was irrelevant’ mean? Feedback should also be about feed forward - what the student can do next time to improve performance.

Adapted from REAP and the Viewpoint projects

Some ways to do this... Technologies to consider...

Ensure feedback is related to the assessment criteria Online Testing/ Written Feedback Tools

Provide feedback in advance of the assignment – FAQs, common errors Screen Recording Tools/ Sound Recording

Provide tutorial activities with feedback Collaboration Tools

Feedback built into online tests Online Testing/ Collaboration Tools

Generic feedback to whole group: following an assignment or as part of in-class activities

Screen Recording Tools/ Sound Recording

Feedback 24-48 hours after hand in - skim, say 10% of work handed in, identify common strengths and weaknesses and feed these back to the class either in the next lecture or posting on to QOL

Online Submissions/ Screen Recording Tools/ Sound Recording

Select model answers as a feedback source and give feedback to the whole group via discussion board

Screen Recording Tools/ Collaboration Tools/ Written Feedback Tools

Ask students to indicate the areas where they would like feedback Written Feedback Tools

Ask students to self-assess their work and provide feedback on this as well as the assessment

Written Feedback Tools/ Multimedia Authoring Tools/ Online Testing/ Portfolio Tools/ Peer to Peer Tools


Provide opportunities to act on feedback

Staff often raise the issue that students do not use the feedback given. There are a number of reasons why this might be including:• students’ perception of feedback coming too late • the module is over, and/or • the mark achieved is acceptable to them.

Students need to use both formative and summative feedback as a means of improving their future performance. Other than via the next piece of assessed work, do you provide students with opportunities to internalise and act on the feedback given? Equally, students will not be able to action the feedback if they do not understand it – this usually comes down to the terminology used by the assessor.


Provide feedback on a draft – this could be tutor feedback or it could be peer feedback which engages the students with the assessment criteria and the ‘art of marking’

Collaboration Tools/ Written Feedback Tools/ Portfolio Tools

Withhold the mark until the student has produced an action plan for the future work (3600 feedback)

Written Feedback Tools

As part of personal tutoring, require students to produce an action plan at the beginning of the new semester/year on how they will address the feedback given in the previous semester/year

Portfolio Tools/ Written Feedback Tools/ Collaboration Tools

Regular activities throughout module that receive feedback – expect this feedback to be incorporated

Portfolio Tools/ Written Feedback Tools/ Collaboration Tools/ Multimedia Authoring Tools/ Online Submission/Online Testing

Have one assignment come in early which is marked and returned to the students in time for them to use the feedback in the second assignment

Online Submission/ Written Feedback Tools/ Collaboration Tools

Ensure that students understand the feedback provided Online Testing/ Collaboration Tools/ Interactive Voting/ Lecture Participation


Encourage interaction and dialogue around learning

• What types of dialogue do you have with your students regarding feedback?• What types of dialogue do you encourage students to have with their peers?

Dialogue between students and between staff and students plays an important role in student success. Students need to engage in dialogue around feedback. Large first year classes make one-to-one interaction between staff and students difficult, but meaningful dialogue can take place between students.


Structure group projects so that students discuss the criteria and standards expected at the start and then review progress against the criteria

Collaboration Tools/ Written Feedback Tools/ Portfolio Tools

Minute papers with questions covering the session – results used at the beginning of the next session

Interactive Voting/ Lecture Participation/ Online Submission

Use group work or support learning groups and learning communities Collaboration Tools/ Written Feedback Tools/ Portfolio Tools/ Peer to Peer Tools

Students set task(s) for each other Collaboration Tools/ Online Testing

Students set MCQ(s) with feedback to correct and incorrect answers Online Testing/ Interactive Voting/ Lecture Participation/ Peer to Peer Tools

Students discuss the written feedback they have been given with their peers and suggest strategies for future improvement

Collaboration Tools

Students bring brief pieces of work to tutorials which are then reviewed by a peer – what is good, what is less good and how can it be improved?


Students peer ‘mark’ or peer review a draft which is then modified in response to the feedback provided



Development of self-assessment and reflection

• How are students developing graduate skills?• Do your students recognise their strengths and weaknesses?

If students are to acquire the skills of regulating their own learning and development they need to be able to self-assess their work. Providing students with opportunities to engage with self-assessment in a formal manner is likely to develop more autonomous learners and lead to greater engagement with criteria and standards.


Ask students to complete a self-assessment proforma (using the assessment criteria) – this may include an estimate of the mark (your feedback would identify why there are gaps between the student’s view and yours)

Online Testing/ Written Feedback Tools/ Peer to Peer Tools

Ask students to indicate the parts of their work which they feel are strengths and weaknesses

Collaboration Tools/ Portfolio Tools

A combination of the two above See above

Students requesting assistance/feedback on particular aspects (this could be included with the above also)

Collaboration Tools/ Portfolio Tools

Peer assessment provides an opportunity for students to engage with the criteria and standards on someone else’s work and then apply that to their own

Written Feedback Tools/ Collaboration Tools/ Peer to Peer Tools

Confidence-based marking for MCQs – students have to rate how confident they are that their chosen answer is correct on a scale of 1-3. The mark is weighted according to their confidence level

Online Testing

Students keep a reflective journal or portfolio through the course Portfolio Tools

Online objective tests and quizzes for self-testing Online Testing

Students include how they have responded to earlier feedback Collaboration Tools/ Portfolio Tools


Give choice of topic, method, criteria, weighting or timing of assessments

• Are there opportunities for your students to choose the topic of their assessment?

• Does the class negotiate and agree deadlines?• Does the class have the opportunity to discuss and have input to the

assessment criteria?

Being able to manage and prioritise work is a key graduate skill. Providing students with opportunities to make decisions about which topic to do, when to hand work in, the weighting of an assessment or part of it, enables them to practise this skill. For example, students often have a choice of topic, or some online testing designs allow students to choose when to take a test during a specified period.


Choice of essay titles and/or negotiated titles

Choice of topic for extended essay or project/dissertation

Negotiated submission dates

Students generate criteria for assessment Collaboration Tools/ Interactive Voting/ Lecture Participation

Students provide additional criteria for assessment Collaboration Tools

Students choose the weighting for parts of an assessment Collaboration Tools/ Interactive Voting/ Lecture Participation

Students set their own schedule Portfolio Tools


Create learning communities

• How do your students learn together?• What opportunities are there for student interaction in your courses within

and beyond the classroom?

Feeling part of a group is important for success at University. This includes opportunities to interact with staff outside the classroom as well as interaction with other students. Social interaction is more difficult when class sizes are large; students live at home or go home regularly and have increasing work commitments outside University.Students also benefit from supporting each other in their academic study through the development of learning communities. Assessment and feedback practices can help to engender social integration and the development of learning communities.


Group tasks Collaboration Tools

Peer review of a draft or final assignment Written Feedback Tools/Collaboration Tools/ Peer to Peer Tools

Group discussion/task around criteria and standards Collaboration Tools/Written Feedback Tools

Course social space e.g. learning café Collaboration Tools

Course social activities Collaboration Tools

Personal tutor groups Collaboration Tools

Peer mentoring Collaboration Tools/ Peer to Peer Tools

Documents

Adapted from REAP and the Viewpoints Project Help clarify good performance (goals, criteria, standards) Do your students understand the assessment criteria