Assessment and Feedback

Overview

Assessing students and providing them with quality, timely feedback is central to learning but can sometimes be challenging for staff to deliver, especially with the increasing demands on staff time. Over a number of years the University has invested considerable resource into enhancing the assessment and feedback experiences for staff and students. For example, two University Teaching Fellowship projects have focused on collating student experiences of assessment and on developing a resource for staff to enhance their feedback practices Engage in Feedback. CDoTL plays a central role in supporting colleagues' practices in assessment and feedback and currently both leads and supports a number of initiatives in this area.

Assessment and Feedback 'Engagements'

CDoTL is currently leading a series of assessment and feedback 'engagements' with all Schools across the University. The overarching aim is to use these engagements to generate tangible outcomes for Schools to implement, which will result in improvements to assessment and feedback practices. These improvements will hopefully not only enhance student learning but may also positively impact upon staff, for example, through a reduction in assessment/feedback loads, more efficient feedback processes etc. Outputs from these engagements have so far resulted in the development of new, discipline-specific workshops for staff, collation of new staff resources and 'swap-shop' events where staff share ideas and experiences of assessment and feedback.

Recent and Current Assessment and Feedback Projects

Engage in Assessment: led by Dr Anne Crook with Luke Micallef

This University Teaching Fellowship project aims to showcase the range of undergraduate assessment methods currently being used in different disciplines and to explore new evidence-based approaches to support and enhance students' active learning through a diversification of assessment practices. Designing and implementing new methods of assessment is however, a time-consuming process so this project has brought together a suite of resources to enable staff to review their existing assessment practices and to support them in the design, delivery and evaluation of alternative methods of assessment. The outcome of the project is the new online resource, 'Engage in Assessment' Engage in Assessment, which complements the University's Engage in Feedback website.

Student Stories of Assessment in HE: led by Dr Martha-Marie Kleinhans

This three-year University Teaching Fellowship project focused on the pedagogic use of storytelling in HE with an initial focus on legal education. The aim of the project was to collate and review student experiences ('stories') of assessment (both quantitative and qualitative) and to use this information to provide learning opportunities for staff about how assessment/feedback is perceived. Ultimately it is hoped that this may result in changes to assessment/feedback practices particularly in subject areas, such as Law and Politics, in which traditional approaches (e.g. 100% exams, essays) have been the main method of assessment.

The ASSET Project - Exploring the Use of Video to Enhance the Feedback Experience for Students and Staff: led by Dr Anne Crook and Professor Julian Park

The key aim of this JISC-funded project was to develop an innovative, interactive Web 2.0 resource, 'ASSET', to encourage staff to experiment with the use of video media to provide feed-forward and feedback to students on their assignments. Staff and students who took part in this project were positive in their response to the use of video as a way of enhancing feedback provision and engagement with feedback. Data from the project have been written up as a series of pedagogic research papers and are currently under review. Full details of the project and the follow-up JISC Benefits Realisation Funding activities are available on the ASSET website.

Engage in Feedback: led by Professor Julian Park and Dr Anne Crook

The aim of this University Teaching Fellowship project was to use an evidence-based approach to enhance the quality and timeliness of feedback provided to students at Reading. The project outcomes have included the development of a new online resource that addresses staff concerns regarding feedback provision and which brings together examples of good feedback practices both within and outside the University, 'Engage in Feedback'. Included in the online resource are a series of feedback 'tools' to provide opportunities for staff to quickly reflect on their current feedback practices. Additional outputs have included new workshops for staff on enhancing feedback practices and new methods for delivering quality, timely feedback to students.

Assessment and Feedback Case Studies from the University of Reading

The case studies below represent a range of different assessment and feedback practices from colleagues across the University

• Project Panaceaging with Feedback
• ging with Feedbackging with Feedback (Dr Eleanor Betts)
• Working Journal (Postcolonial Women's Writing) (Dr Alison Donnell)
• Supporting students to research, plan and write a development proposal (Dr Ruth Evans)
• Business Interaction and Feedback (Practice of Entrepreneurship) (Dr Shaheena Janjuha-Jivraj)
• Improved Neural Network Assignment by Staged Laboratory Practicals (Dr Richard Mitchell)
• Electronic marking notes (Dr Matthew Nicholls)
• Ways of Seeing Buildings (Dr Brian O'Callaghan)
• The Use of Debates as a Learning or Assessment Tool (Dr Julian Park)
• Using Technology to Enhance Teaching and Learning (Mrs Anne Smith)
• Assessment and Feedback in Problem-Based Learning Activities (Dr Katja Strohfeldt-Venables)
• Design of Statistics Assessments for Life Sciences Students (Dr Fiona Underwood)
• Peer and Self Assessment of Posters in Archaeology (Dr Paddy Woodman)