Bring your lunch and join us on March 18 for the last session of the Welcome to My Classroom series this term. You’ll have the chance to take part in a valuable discussion on how to interpret and get the most out of our teaching evaluations.

The session will run from 12-1:30 p.m. in room 422 Dunton Tower. Space is limited, so please .

We’ll look at the motivation behind providing feedback and the tools, such as rubrics and grading forms, that you can leverage to help grade more quickly and provide consistency across different markers. Course grading structures and cuLearn course interaction data will also be examined to pull out automatic feedback.

A general outline of the session follows:

• The purpose of and motivation behind feedback
• Dimensions of feedback: timing, amount, mode, and audience
• Feedback opportunities (rubrics, grading forms, text, drawing, audio, video)
• Creating course checkpoints

Find out more and .

For most teaching assistants, marking student assignments is an important duty. Through my experience as teaching assistant, I have observed several students do not engage with feedback provided on assignments. An important part of learning is to review feedback on assignments and learn from mistakes for future assignments. When assigned to a course, sometimes teaching assistants are unaware of how to give students effective and engaging comments. It is important to give engaging feedback to students so teaching assistants are not wasting time writing comments the student does not understand. This article will explore the problems of student engagement with feedback and how teaching assistants can apply effective feedback strategies.

Identifying Problems with Feedback

One of the main reasons students do not engage with feedback is because they do not think the feedback is relevant and the student does not understand it. Most feedback in the social sciences is delivered via written comments that the student can misinterpret. Students may not engage with feedback is because they do not see the link between one topic in class and the next topic. The student does not think he/she needs to apply the feedback to the next topic. A t problem associated with feedback is the student understanding criteria. Unless the student fully understands the assignment criteria, he/she cannot decode the feedback. Feedback is understood in reference to an assignment in which a student is compared to an ideal performance determined by assessment criteria. Unless the student fully understands the assessment criteria, the feedback will not be effective for them (Handley and Williams 96).

Effective Student Engagement with Feedback

Flukiger and others state characteristics of effective written feedback, “Effective formative feedback must be specific, simple, descriptive, and focused on the task. This allows learners to set clear expectations of themselves and to make decisions that influence their own successes” (Flukiger et al., 136). In addition to written feedback, they suggest feedback involves multiple aspects, “For maximum benefit, feedback must focus on more than one aspect of learning; thus formative feedback is given on the product (assignment or performance), on the process (how it’s done), and on the progress (improvement over time) of the learning” (Flukiger et al., 136).

In addition to written feedback, meetings between student and teacher are an effective way to engage students in feedback. Amy Cramp performed a study analyzing meetings between student and teacher after students received feedback on an assignment. Four themes arose from the study: “better understanding of study and assessment skills…reading feedback as specific and generic…interpreting feedback…and developing academic identities” (Cramp 117-120). By reading the feedback out loud to the student, the student was able to understand the relationship between the feedback and its application to other assignments and their larger academic career. Students were also able to understand the meaning of the comments without misinterpretation and the meeting allowed the student to react to the feedback openly and honestly (Cramp 117-120).

I have identified the common problems associated with students and their ability to engage with feedback on assignments. Through clear language and meeting with the student effective engagement with feedback can be achieved. Meetings with every student may not be a viable solution in a large class. These meeting suggestions may offer a way to engage students with feedback in an office hour. Through written and verbal feedback, I have offered an effective way to engage students with feedback.

Bibliography

Cramp, Amy. “Developing First-year Engagement with Written Feedback.” Active Learning in Higher Education 12 no. 2 (2011): 113-124.

Fluckiger, Jarene, et al. “Formative Feedback: Involving Students as Partners in Assessment to Enhance Learning.” College Teaching 58 (2010): 136-140.

Handley, Karen, and Lindsay Williams. “From Copying to Learning: Using Exemplars to Engage

Students with Assessment Criteria and Feedback.” Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education 36 no. 1 (2011): 95-108.

 “Action without feedback is completely unproductive for the learner” (Handley, Millar & Price, 2011, p. 879)

Discourse on feedback consistently suggests that students are disengaged from course material as a result of weak and insufficient feedback mechanisms. When feedback is provided to students by teaching assistants (TA) and professors collectively, it is commonly unclear, not detailed, and rarely provided in a timely manner. Traditionally, feedback is provided taking a summative approach, where students’ achievements are summarized at the end of a term through a final grade. This is a rather passive approach which does not allow a TA to have an impact on student engagement with the course material while the term is progressing. As such, a new perspective has been adopted which focuses on the incorporation of formative feedback processes, where students are provided with ongoing clarification and reassurance which enhances their motivation as well as stimulates a higher level of engagement with the learning opportunities that university level courses and associated course materials have to offer.

Given that students have no control over the feedback methods they receive, it is the duty of the TAs to employ robust formative feedback processes which encourage student engagement. It is suggested, therefore, that as a TA you follow Beaumont, O’Doherty, and Shannon’s Dialogic Feedback Cycle; a best-practice which promotes continuous dialogue within a cyclical, phased assessment framework. The Cycle is presented next, along with the specific feedback mechanisms which are expected to encourage student engagement.

Preparatory Guidance – Phase I

This phase requires TAs discuss in tutorial sessions the marking schemes and grading criteria for each assignment. It is in the best interest of TAs to use model answers from previous years to guide students.

In-Task Guidance – Phase II

This phase requires that TAs provide continuous and consistent formative assessment opportunities for students to engage with and discuss the schemes and criteria from Phase I.

Performance Feedback – Phase III

This phase requires that TAs provide students with formal written and verbal feedback on specific assignments. Of the course the feedback provided must be consistent with the schemes and criteria from Phase I.

So what feedback mechanisms are available to TAs? Although it is expected that traditional mechanisms such as summative grades, email, and office hours continue to be used, TAs can take the feedback process one step further to include the following four formative methods. Notably, TAs can make the most use of these feedback mechanisms in Phase II and as such, can have the most impact on student engagement in this phase as well.

• Break large assignments into smaller, more manageable pieces. Not only does this ensure students are engaged with the course material more systematically throughout the term, it provides an opportunity for students to come to you more often for reassurance that they are on the right track. Effectively, more consistent and structured guidance only makes students want to do their work more.
• Engage students in peer review and peer marking. This can be done during tutorial sessions or through technologically supported online dialogues (i.e., blogs, ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´â€™s WebCT, etc.). The focus of this method is to provide students with the opportunity to share draft deliverables and receive peer reviewed comments from each other. The result is high-level discussion and interaction among students which raises their awareness of quality work and thereby engages them more deeply with course material to achieve a higher standard.
• Provide verbal feedback on coursework in an individual meeting. Research suggests that personalized, one-on-one feedback from TAs is most valued by students because it makes them, along with the effort they put into the assignment, feel acknowledged. Additionally, the relational dimension of this process where students can respond to feedback enables trust and confidence to be built between the student and their TA. Verbal feedback can also include devoting a certain amount of time during tutorial sessions for structured feedback which pertains to the entire group of students.
• Provide in-depth written feedback. Personal experience (as a student and a TA) suggests that TAs often neglect to provide quality written feedback because they are unilaterally focused on applying the specific schemes and criteria to produce an overall grade. However, it is important that TAs veer away from this mentality and provide formal written feedback (i.e., how calculations should be done, where arguments went off course, grammatical errors, etc.) to identify areas of improvement for subsequent assignments.

Following the structured and strategic approach to feedback inherent to the Dialogic Feedback Cycle has significant power and impact on student engagement because it makes students mindful of their next assignment and the application of current feedback to it. The phased-approach to feedback motivates students to engage with courses and course material going-forward because they are consistently reassured and motivated by corrective action that can be acted on in subsequent course deliverables. When TAs provide timely, pertinent and clear feedback through the mechanisms identified above, students go from thinking “TAs just want to grade this quickly to get it over with” to a point where students feel acknowledged and take pride in the subsequent work they submit to show improvements have been made. Ultimately, this will lead to better quality learning and higher grades for students.

Bibliography

Beaumont, C., O’Doherty, M., & Shannon, L. (2011). Reconceptualising Assessment Feedback: A Key to Improving Student Learning? . Studies in Higher Education 36(6), 671-687.

Brown, J. (2007). Feedback: The Student Perspective. Research in Post-Compulsory Education 12(1), 33-51.

Handley, K., Millar, J., & Price, M. (2011). Feedback: Focusing Attention on Engagement. Studies in Higher Education 36(8), 879-896.

Hepplestone, S., Holden, G., Irwin, B., Parkin, H., & Thorpe, L. (2011). A Role for Technology in Enhancing Students’ Engagement with Feedback. Assessment & Education in Higher Education, 1- 11.