Part C. Abstract
One of the most powerful and influential tools of an educator is his / her assessment and feedback practice. Well-designed assessment and feedback can have a positive impact on students’ attitudes to learning and performance. Conversely when badly-designed, it can adversely affect the same. It is widely asserted that feedback practice requires a re-framing from a uni-directional to a dialogical perspective and seminal literature points to the need to feed-forward as well as feed-back to students. Literature suggests that feedback and assessment are interlinked and one cannot be re-conceptualised without addressing its counterpart. This case study explores the effects of embedding feedback and assessment literacies with a group of Humanities students (year 2) on learners’ academic performance. The study focuses on feedback strategies such as dialogical feedback, flipped feedback and feedforward. Findings of the case study suggest that most students developed greater competencies such as critical thinking skills and unpredicted outcomes were that learners demonstrated an improvement in metacognitive skills and increased engagement and emotional commitment to the learning process. Students reported that the case study had made them reflect on how they think and form opinions. The discussion highlights some wider thinking around the connection between making learners aware and part of their assessment and feedback process (developing assessment and feedback literacies) and learners developing metacognitive skills. When students are put at the centre of their feedback and assessment process, they are more likely to take the reins of their whole learning experience.
Constructive Alignment with Feedback at the centre (Gallagher 2017)
Introduction
An extract from my diary-
Week 1: Class one, year two, Humanities students, Community Development and Active Citizenship module.
- Assumption 1; students have a better grasp of political thought than I do.
- Assumption 2; they have been trained to think and write critically within an inch of their lives with brilliant lecturers who have come before me.
- Assumption 3; when students say they understand and don’t ask questions about the assessment content and form, it means they understand perfectly.
Week 2: I asked a hinge question on Community Development, nobody answered it with any depth of understanding. We have hit the proverbial brick wall!
Week 3: Why the brick wall?
- Students do not see the relevance of Community Development to their degree.
- They are used to looking at politics through a theoretical lens and Community Development cannot be grasped in this sphere.
Something needs to radically change!!