- Design assessment so that feedback has a ‘landing place,’ i.e., somewhere for students to apply it. If an assessment task comes at the end of the year and there are no further assessments, facilitate the revisiting of that feedback prior to a relevant assessment the following year.
- Try to frame feedback comments in ways that are ‘actionable’. For example, saying ‘your writing is not clear’ does not offer a clear call to action, whereas ‘find all long sentences and consider how you could rewrite them into shorter, clearer sentences’ does.
- Consider how and where you can engage students in activities that enable them to develop the skills underpinning effective use of feedback. You might find this Developing Engagement with Feedback Toolkit (DEFT) useful to get ideas for implementing effective use of feedback (Nash and Winstone, 2016).
- We all find using feedback challenging – not just students. We can support students’ use of feedback by sharing our own experiences of receiving and using feedback and, sharing the strategies that we have found useful in our own work.
Thank you for taking this ‘Supporting Students’ Use of Feedback’ course which has been developed with Naomi Winstone. We hope you have enjoyed it. Remember to mark this lesson as ‘Mark Complete’ to earn your Course Completion Badge.
Naomi's recommended reading
Price, M., Handley, K., & Millar, J. (2011). Feedback: Focusing attention on engagement. Studies in Higher Education, 36(8), 879-896.
Carless, D., & Boud, D. (2018). The development of student feedback literacy: enabling uptake of feedback. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 43(8), 1315-1325.
Jonsson, A. (2013). Facilitating productive use of feedback in higher education. Active Learning in Higher Education, 14(1), 63-76.
Key sources from Naomi's research
Winstone, N. E., & Carless, D. (2019). Designing effective feedback processes in higher education: A learning-focused approach. London: Routledge.
Winstone, N. E., Mathlin, G., & Nash, R. A. (2019). Building feedback literacy: Students' perceptions of the Developing Engagement with Feedback Toolkit. Frontiers in Education, 4, 39.
Winstone, N., Nash., R., Parker, M., & Rowntree, J. (2017). Supporting learners' engagement with feedback: A systematic review and a taxonomy of recipience processes. Educational Psychologist, 52, 17-37.
Winstone, N. E.,Bourne, J., Medland, E., Niculescu, I., & Rees, R. (2020). 'Check the grade, log out': Students' engagement with feedback in Learning Management Systems. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, Advance Online Publication.
Winstone, N. E. (2019). Facilitating students' use of feedback: Capturing and tracking impact using digital tools. In M. Henderson, R. Ajjawi, D. Boud, & E. Molloy (eds). The impact of feedback in higher education: Improving assessment outcomes for learners. London: Palgrave, 225-242.
Winstone, N. E., Hepper, E. G., & Nash, R. A. (2019). Individual differences in self-reported use of feedback information: The mediating role of feedback beliefs. Educational Psychology, Advance Online Publication.
Winstone, N. E., & Nash, R. A. (2019). Developing students' proactive engagement with feedback. In C. Bryan & K. Clegg (Eds.), Innovative assessment in higher education: A handbook for academic practitioners. London: Taylor and Francis, 129-138.
Parker, M., & Winstone, N. (2016). Students' perceptions of interventions for supporting their engagement with feedback. Practitioner Research in Higher Education. 10(1), 53-64.
References
Bloxham, S. & Campbell, L. (2010). Generating dialogue in assessment feedback: exploring the use of interactive cover sheets. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 35(3), 291-300.
Carless, D. & Boud, D. (2018). The development of student feedback literacy: enabling uptake of feedback. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 43(8), 1315-1325.
Gravett, K. & Winstone, N. E. (2019) 'Feedback interpreters': the role of learning development professionals in facilitating university students' engagement with feedback. Teaching in Higher Education, 24(6), 723-738.
Jonsson, A. (2013). Facilitating productive use of feedback in higher education. Active Learning in Higher Education, 14(1), 63-76.
Dawson, P., Henderson, M., Mahoney, P., Michael Phillips, M., Ryan, T., Boud, D. & Molloy, E. (2019). What makes for effective feedback: staff and student perspectives. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 44(1), 25-36.
Man, D., Chau, M. H. & Kong, B. (2020). Promoting student engagement with teacher feedback through rebuttal writing. Educational Psychology.
Malecka, B., Boud, D. & Carless, D. (2020). Eliciting, processing and enacting feedback: mechanisms for embedding student feedback literacy within the curriculum. Teaching in Higher Education.
Molloy, E., Boud, D. & Henderson, M. (2020). Developing a learning-centred framework for feedback literacy. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 45(4), 527-540.
Mulliner, E. & Tucker, M. (2017). Feedback on feedback practice: perceptions of students and academics. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 42(2), 266-288.
Nash, R. A. & Winstone, N. E. (2016). The Developing Engagement with Feedback Toolkit (DEFT). Advanced HE. [Online].
Nash, R. A. & Winstone, N. E. (2017). Responsibility-Sharing in the Giving and Receiving of Assessment Feedback. Frontiers in psychology.
Price, M., Handley, K. & Millar, J. (2011). Feedback: focusing attention on engagement. Studies in Higher Education, 36(8), 879-896.
Sadler, D.R. (1989). Formative assessment and the design of instructional systems. Instr Sci 18,119-144.
Winstone, N. E., Nash, R. A., Rowntree, J., & Parker, M. (2017a). 'It'd be useful, but I wouldn't use it': barriers to university students' feedback seeking and recipience. Studies in Higher Education 42(11), 2026-2041.
Winstone, N. E., Nash, R. A., Parker, M. & Rowntree, J. (2017b). Supporting Learners' Agentic Engagement With Feedback: A Systematic Review and a Taxonomy of Recipience Processes. Educational Psychologist, 52(1), 17-37.