Assessment Feedback using Comment banks: A useful approach Jeff Bray

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Assessment Feedback using Comment banks A useful
approach?Jeff Bray
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Jeff Bray

• 4 years in industry
• One year of survival
• Year of reflection, improvement and understanding

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Assessment Whats the Point?

• Enables tutor to Grade performance
• Distinguish between students
• We have to
• Provide feedback and learning opportunity to the
  students

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Assessment Whats the Point?

• Formative Assessment
• Summative Assessment

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Assessment Guidelines

• Benchmarks APRP Section F
• F1.3.1 Assessment should form 25 of student
  learning time
• F1.3.2 20 Credit unit 180hours therefore
  assessment should be based around 45hours
• F1.3.3 10hours 1000 words or 1 hour in an
  exam environment
• 3hr exam 1500 word essay
• I\ADQ\Public\Assessment Regs\STANDARD ASSESSMENT
  REGS\BLUE BOOK 3 F.doc

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Role of Assessment Feedback

• It is through feedback of assessment that many
  of its functions are performed
• Nicol et al. 1994

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Role of Assessment Feedback

• feedback resulted in positive benefits on
  learning and achievement across all areas
• Black and Wiliam(1998)

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Reality Check!

• What do our students do with the feedback?
• Read it
• Annotate it to gain further understanding
• Seek clarification when not clear
• Refer back when submitting future work

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Reality Check!

• What do our students do with the feedback?
• Throw it
• In my first and second year I never really read
  the feedback, I was only interested in the mark
• Final Year Retail Student

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Good and Bad Practice

• Good
• Focused around positive statements provides
  ideas about what could be improved
• Clearly written in an accessible manner
• A depth of individual feedback is provided
• Supplemented with in-text annotation
• Generates OWNERSHIP of feedback

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Good and Bad Practice

• Bad
• Illegible
• Hand written
• Written in pencil
• Generic
• doesnt appear to apply to MY work
• Unclear contradictory
• Solely negative comments
• Demotivational

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Its a tough job!

• How can we most efficiently deliver this high
  standard of feedback?
• Spend hours doing it?
• Not an option certainly not the answer I set
  out to find

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Alternative Approaches

• Generic tick box approach
• Highly time efficient
• Provides a high degree of objectivity
• Students can clearly see what they need to do in
  order to progress
• Provides clear justification for the mark

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But

• Does not generate the ownership sought
• Lacks depth and capacity to really articulate the
  key issues
• Crude

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Comment Banks

• We do find repetition in our comments
• Each comment can be carefully constructed to
  ensure they outline possible improvement

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Construction

• Based upon previous years feedback
• Excel enables customisation and individual
  comments to be added where appropriate

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Discussion