Assessing learning and exchanging feedback (A3, V3)
Contextual Background
Part of my role includes supporting academic staff in the design of assessment during the design stage of course and unit development and ensuring that any assessment is inclusive, flexible and accessible. The current course I am working on is a series of 14-week long, 30-credit units as part of an online MA in Graphic Communication.
Evaluation
When it comes to choosing assessment methods, the conversation tends to focus on delivering assessment of learning, however, assessment for learning is not often discussed as an effective mode of teaching and learning, particularly when it comes to teaching creative arts disciplines online.
Furthermore, there isn’t always diversity in how feedback for assessments is given. Feedback is typically written, and time-consuming to give. As a result, academic staff tend to be reluctant to build in opportunities for formative assessment as it increases their workload and the value of it isn’t always apparent.
Moving forwards
To address this, I’d like to incorporate elements of Nicol and Macfarlane-Dick’s seven principles of good feedback practice. I will build in more opportunities for low-stakes formative assessment. Asking students to share their work-in-progress regularly should help to reduce the fear around a ‘high-stakes big submission’ at the end of the unit. This should help academic staff to gain early and regular feedback on student progress and comfortability with the project brief.
I recommend using ‘Process Portfolio’ as part of the unit assessment strategy. This can be a collection of artefacts that may include artworks, reflective writing or preparatory sketches that evidence creative processes and progress towards a final product. This can be built over time, allowing for chunking of assessment tasks at various points in the unit.
Using Mark Russell’s models of assessment patterns, I recommend the following model for formative assessment opportunities within a 14-week unit. The green represents low-stakes formative assessment and the red represents high-stakes assessment which in this instance is going to be summative.
This approach will alleviate the pressure associated with high-stakes summative assessments by distributing student effort across the unit, promoting a continuous and reflective approach to learning. Providing regular feedback on work created as part of the process can ‘strengthen the students’ capacity to self-regulate their own performance’ (Nicol and Macfarlane-Dick, 2021). Every formative feedback point should be planned and expectations made clear to students (Bunting et al).
I wanted to explore different strategies for providing feedback, such as ‘feedforward’ and exploring video as a format of giving feedback. The combination of regular formative assessment opportunities combined with audiovisual feedforward strategies can ensure that the feedback loop is closed (Boud, 2000) and that ‘assessment has an effective developmental impact on learning’ (Gray, 2016). This approach seemed to work well when I tested it in a shorter course, with one of the student’s stating that it ‘Let me know more about the teacher and feel closer to the teacher.’
By implementing Nicol and Macfarlane-Dick’s feedback strategies and focusing on regular formative assessments and different ways of giving feedback, we can encourage self-regulation, and complete the feedback cycle.
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References
Boud, D. (2000) ‘Sustainable Assessment: Rethinking assessment for the learning society’, Studies in Continuing Education, 22(2), pp. 151–167. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/713695728.
Bunting, L. et al. Eliminating inequality in formative assessment. AEM. Available at: https://www.arts.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0019/190153/AEM-Eliminating-Inequality-Formative-Assessment-PDF-288KB.pdf (Accessed: 15 March 2024).
Gray, L. (2016) Feedback and feed forward
Using technology to support students’ progression over time. Available at: https://www.jisc.ac.uk/guides/feedback-and-feed-forward (Accessed: 13 March 2024).
Nicol, D.J. and Macfarlane-Dick, D. (2021) ‘Formative Assessment and Self-regulated learning: a Model and Seven Principles of Good Feedback Practice’, Studies in Higher Education, 31(2), pp. 199–218.
Reimann, N., Sadler, I. and Sambell, K. (2019) ‘What’s in a word? Practices associated with “feedforward” in higher education’, Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 44(8), pp. 1279–1290. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2019.1600655.
Russell, M. et al. (2018) ‘The ESCAPE Project’, BRILL eBooks, pp. 40–50. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004393455_004.