On the 6th November 2024, we had the opportunity to facilitate workshops as part of Bristol SU’s RepCon event (Student Representatives Conference), an annual training event for course representatives. Our (Joe Gould, Prof. Sheila Amici-Dargan and UG Education Officer Mia Stevens) session was focused on developing ways to consider feedback experiences and likely scenarios which may be encountered during the course of an academic year.
Across three different sessions we discussed different understandings of ‘feedback’, explored the context of feedback at the University of Bristol and started to consider approaches for how to effectively use the network of support to help improve collective approaches and experiences to feedback.
Some of the workshop looked at different definitions and understandings of feedback and how this may often give rise to uncertainty and frustration.
In response to the above activity, many of the groups emphasised the importance of having feedback which felt accessible and helped to further deconstruct, or make clear, aspects of marking criteria.
We also considered that whilst we are committed to collaboratively improving these experiences, everyone will have their own individual approaches to engaging and responding to feedback, and so what systems and activities are in place (or being developed) to ensure there is a full variety of support for engaging and responding to feedback information.
It was also an excellent opportunity to hear about what practices are happening in some areas and to consider which might be worth introducing to consistently enhance all students’ experience of feedback across the institution.
We would have liked to have had longer to discuss some of these scenarios (there are other faculty-based scenarios), but what often came out of our initial discussions was the importance of dialogue and clarifying expectations about the role of feedback and clearly outlining opportunities for where to apply feedback information on subsequent learning.
One of the themes which seemed to be mentioned in a few instances was the challenge of PGT courses feeling ‘compressed’ and the importance of aligning one assessment type with the subsequent one for feedback to have its full utility value.
We are in the process of setting up an Assessment and Feedback network – whatever your background you are welcome to join for invites to events and updates on this area of special interest.
Our next event for students is running on Monday 18th November 2024 [Senate House Rm 5.22 13.00-14.30 or 15.00-16.30] please contact us if you are a student interested in sharing your experiences of feedback and contributing to this university-wide collaboration project. If you are unable to attend this event we will have other events later in the academic year.
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