The Practice
Out project aimed to integrate the BSP (Bristol Skills Profile, see the BILT blog by Naomi Love) into our existing toolkit, the Assessment and Feedback Portfolio, that was designed to facilitate student engagement with assessment feedback. The Assessment and Feedback Portfolio is comprised of assessment landscapes and landing maps, a skills profile and the Feedback Engagement Tool. These tools were designed based on the work of Naomi Winstone and Robert Nash in the DEFT project. This work was done in the School of Biological Sciences, which has a mixed programme cohort of ~700-800 students on our UG programmes.
To begin with, we mapped our programme to the 27 BSP subskills using the template as described by Alice Robson at the Bristol Skills Profile event in 2024. Whilst we were working on this, we realised we didn’t have a clear definition of what each skill pertained to, and so to address this, our student partner, Reinart Jensema, worked to extract the highest competency description of each skill in the skills check in My Skills. Whilst the skills had been deliberately named to be broad and open to allow for contextualisation within disciplines, we found it really helpful to have these descriptions written down and to add to them with nuances from our own programmes. This resulted in our “School Definitions” of the BSP (Attachment 1), resulting in a framework that easily allows us to map the BSP to our units and ultimately assessments. We have provided a template to allow other Schools and departments to do the same if they wish (Attachment 2).
This led us on to mapping all of our assessments to each of the 27 BSP subskills. An exercise we felt would enable us to share with students where they are developing these skills in the degree programme. This was also an opening to map out the feedback and feedforward options for each assessment, something we had already addressed in our assessment landing maps (Figure 1) but in much greater granularity. An example of what this looked like in our programmes is provided in Attachment 3, along with a template for School to undertake the same exercise in Attachment 4.
Figure 1 An assessment landing map of our first year units
Once we had collected all of this data about our assessments, we wanted to share this with students in the Assessment Briefs that would appear on Blackboard. The move to Blackboard Ultra presented an opportunity to create standardised assessment briefing templates that would ensure consistency of instruction and maintain a level of detail that included the feedback/feedforward opportunities and how the assessment related to the BSP. This template is provided in Attachment 5.
Ultimately, this work provided the grounding for integrating the BSP into our Feedback Engagement Tool. This tool supports students to engage with their feedback by providing a space to summarise that information whilst also interpreting the skills underpinning that feedback. Then, students can action plan by browsing a resource bank that now includes all of the pathways from My Skills. In addition, we added a section directing students to complete the skills assessment in My Skills and provides a space for students to reflect on their skills development through their academic assessment. We are pleased to be able to share this tool for wider UoB adoption (Attachment 6), along with an editable user guide (Attachment 7). In the School of Biological Sciences, we have “bridging weeks” at the start of Years 2 and 3—dedicated sessions offering students preparation, guidance, and academic readiness activities. As part of this, students complete a reflective writing assessment using the AFP tools and are required to complete the FET (which is not marked) and submit it alongside the reflective writing. This ensures engagement at key stages in the academic journey in the degree programme.
The Impact
This project has allowed us to review our curriculum and look for opportunities to integrate the BSP into our programmes. We aim to implement activities which use the FET in first year and encourage student use of the skills assessments in My Skills. As we have already structured bridging week tasks around use of the FET, this also promotes engagement with My Skills at the start of Years 2 and 3. By building the BSP into our assessment briefs, we hope this will allow students to understand how their academic progress relates to their BSP development.
We have also shared the FET to external users and presented the findings from this project at two conferences this year, including STEM Horizons where, joined by our student partner, we won a prize for best talk of Day 1.
Student partner reflection
I, Reinart Jensema, had the opportunity to assist in the development of the Assessment and Skills Portfolio for the Biological Sciences department, working alongside Dr. Rose Murray and Dr. Bex Pike as a student partner.
Reflecting on my input to the project, I see two perspectives: firstly, as a co-creator helping to make these tools, and secondly, as a student using the tools in practice. As a co-creator, aside from developing the FET and assessment maps, I had the opportunity to understand how assessment literacy is crucial in optimising feedback within education. My first example of this was in demystifying the phrasing used within Bristol Skills, My Skills. By extracting the definitions of these skills, they could be reframed into clear and subject-specific language, empowering students to better understand and engage with the feedback used in assessment reflection. Working on this project as a student partner also meant that I could ensure the tools created reflected the needs of the student body. A key example of this is my contribution to the resources for improvement page, where I had the opportunity to vet resources for relevance and usability.
Secondly, viewing the project as a student, it highlighted the importance of recognising feedback as a continuous process, rather than a series of transactional and independent events. This perspective is encouraged both by the assessment landscapes, which outline areas of feedback and feedforward, and by the feedback tracker within the FET. In my experience, the combination of these has been the biggest contributor to developing a stronger sense of ownership over my academic performance and a greater sense of continuity in my learning process across the degree programme.
I am also pleased with my professional development through the course of this project, which was highlighted in an end-of-project review. In this, I was pleased to have my work ethic, enthusiasm and technical expertise highlighted. Additionally, in this review, some areas of improvement were highlighted, which I have since had the opportunity to reflect on and begin improving. Ultimately, this project has shifted my perspective of feedback from a standalone critique of past work to a continuous process of growth, both academically and professionally. Moving forward, I plan to continue using the FET in my academic work to more effectively understand and act on feedback. Additionally, I will begin logging my professional feedback similarly, starting with the feedback I received at the end of this project. This will provide a structured and consistent way to reflect on my growth.
As such, I will be continuing to use the FET in my academic processes
Next Steps
Our next steps are to evaluate the BSP-redeveloped tools and we are fortunate to be able to do this with the assistance of a BILT education development fund for our project entitled “From Feedback Fatigue to Feedback Fluency: Enhancing Student Learning Through Assessment Innovation”, so watch this space for project updates! In this project we seek to evaluated the toolkit but also to consider how reflective assessment influences students’ perceptions of and engagement with feedback and how this shapes their own academic practice in turn.
We are also very pleased to share all of the tools that we have developed throughout this project and you can find them as downloadable links at the bottom of this case study.
Contact
Rose Murray, rose.murray@bristol.ac.uk
- Attachment 1: completed school definition of BSP
- Attachment 2: template for school definitions of BSP
- Attachment 3: completed BSP and feedback/forward mapping of assessments
- Attachment 4: template for assessment mapping to BSP and feedback/forward.
- Attachment 5: Assessment Brief template
- Attachment 6: FET for UoB use
- Attachment 7: FET user guide for UoB use
