Ideas for more effective and efficient assessment & feedback

  1. Use self, peer, and group assessments: for example students have full marking criteria/rubric and mark their own work against these; a reflection on this self-marking exercise is submitted with the assignment (and can be marked).
  1. Focus on assignments during classroom sessions rather than using different case studies for classroom and assessments. This will allow you to provide formative feedback throughout; students engage more deeply with the assignment, receive feedback and support through interaction with peers and tutors and produce better work.
  1. Develop a feedback comments bank and make (some of) these comments available to the whole cohort (via Moodle) at an early stage. The comments addressing the most commonly made mistakes can be fed to the students soon after submission but ensure that these are sufficiently general if available to all. A feedback comments bank also allows you to re-cycle comments and personalise them as necessary.
  1. Race (2003) in his feedback compendium suggests releasing a model answer straight after the submission deadline. Annotate this model answer with markers’ comments and explain this in class.

5.  Rethink your assignments. Race (2003) in his feedback compendium suggests that if possible to reduce the size of the pieces of work to mark. The (formative) assignment can still be quite substantial but the piece you mark may be less so. Students may need to undertake a significant amount of work to develop a ‘product’ and receive formative feedback throughout this process but the elements of this ‘product’ which you mark may be less sizable, e.g. a reflection on the process and the critical incidents; a presentation or video; a 500 word critical ‘interpretation’ which can be equally challenging and develop higher level skills

  1. Use different feedback techniques (e.g. audio, video, inline comments or sound bytes, etc.) Ask around as some of your colleagues will have done this e.g. Martin Lavelle’s Partial Fraction Decomposition Quiz: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiUTuNrH4yo.
  1. Develop formative Moodle quizzes to provide immediate feedback. These may be designed so that they assess and provide feedback on preparatory (course)work students have to do. In the past, PU students have asked that tutors make greater use of the functionality of Moodle.
  1. Map assessments and submission deadlines of all modules across the year to avoid bunching; use the assessment planner (https://www.plymouth.ac.uk/uploads/production/document/path/2/2724/Assessment_planner_.pptx) or something similar to help you do this as a team.
  1. Schedule a team assessment day. For example, this could be a project showcase day, a ‘conference’ where students present posters or workshops. Peers and tutors review/assess and complete appropriate forms. All assessed work for a module or several modules can be assessed in a day. Dialogue and feedback could be audio-recorded by students.

Useful resources:

·  Phil Race’s booklet on self, peer, and group assessment can be downloaded from his website under: http://phil-race.co.uk/archive-of-downloads-from-previous-website/

·  PU’s 7 steps series: download our ‘7 Steps to: peer and self assessment’, ‘7steps to: giving effective feedback’, and ‘7 steps to: inclusive assessment’ from our website under: https://www.plymouth.ac.uk/your-university/teaching-and-learning/guidance-and-resources/7-step-series

·  Here you can find some guidance on assessing group work from the Australian Centre for the Study of HE; as you scroll down the page you will also find information on e.g. how to assign marks; self and peer assessment options of group work: http://melbourne-cshe.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/1770717/Group.pdf

·  As you scroll down our Assessment web pages, there is also section on ‘Assessing group work’: https://www.plymouth.ac.uk/your-university/teaching-and-learning/guidance-and-resources/assessment )

·  New ways of Giving Feedback from Cardiff University: http://learning.cf.ac.uk/enhancing-teaching/assessment/feedback/strategies-to-improve-feedback/new-ways-of-giving-feedback/;

·  ‘Grading Student Papers: Reducing Faculty Workload while Improving Feedback to Students’, an online article from the Association for Psychological Science: http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/publications/observer/2009/november-09/grading-student-papers-reducing-faculty-workload-while-improving-feedback-to-students.html

·  Phil Race’s feedback compendium as a zip file which you can find here: (http://phil-race.co.uk/downloads/ ).

·  HEA’s feedback toolkit: 10 strategies to engage students with feedback can be accessed and downloaded under: https://www.heacademy.ac.uk/node/3521

·  Our inclusive assessment website: https://www.plymouth.ac.uk/your-university/teaching-and-learning/inclusivity/inclusive-assessment; the Good practice guide in particular, which you can access from this page (under title, left most block)

·  Oxford Brooke’s ASKE resources, in particular the guides ‘How to make your feedback work in three easy steps!’ and ‘Using generic feedback effectively!’ which can be downloaded from here: http://www.brookes.ac.uk/aske/resources/

PS_ED, 20th June 2015; updated June 2016Page 1/2