This week’s addition to our A – Z of BILT series is written by Dave Gatrell, Lecturer in Academic Development.
The concepts of formative assessment and feedback are intrinsically linked. By engaging in ungraded formative assessment tasks during their programme, students are able to generate feedback – information from teachers, peers or other sources about their progress towards learning goals – and then use this to improve their learning.
Findings from successive National Student Surveys and TESTA (Transforming the Experience of Students ThroughAssessment) show that opportunities for formative assessment and feedback are central to students’ university experience, and suggest that building in additional opportunities for low-stakes practice and meaningful, personalised feedback is likely to have a transformative impact on their experience. It’s no surprise, then, that the University of Bristol Assessment and Feedback Strategy 2022-30 emphasises the importance of formative assessment and feedback in assessment approaches that are integrated, authentic and designed for all. This post explores formative assessment and feedback in the context of the UoB strategy, with examples of how each of the strategic priorities are being applied in practice.
Integrated assessment underscores the progressive and sequenced nature of assessment within and across units, with a balance of formative and summative tasks. Feedback must be ongoing and developmental, with opportunities for students to reflect and act upon it in order to learn and improve. It must be designed into the learning experience – in and out of class, group and individual, provided not only by course tutors but also by peers and students themselves.
One example of integrated formative assessment and feedback is students’ development of a reflective portfolio in Music and Sex, a Year 3 unit on the Music (BA) programme. Students choose any five weeks of the unit to write a 600-word blog post on, summarising and responding to the key points of the material encountered in the pre-class reading. Towards the end of the unit, students select three entries to submit without revision as their summative portfolio. Students have multiple opportunities to receive formative feedback on their posts before each class. In addition to getting informal written comments via email, students can arrange to meet their tutor individually to receive oral feedback and are required to read and comment on each other’s contributions. This feedback can then inform their contributions to class discussions, which are themselves opportunities for students to receive further feedback on what they have written;or, as programme director Florian Scheding puts it, to ‘test what they’ve written against the conversation’. Engaging in ongoing and developmental feedback throughout the unit enables students to develop their understanding of what good reflective writing looks like and build on their learning. Crucially, it ensures that students can make use of the feedback they receive, making the process efficient and impactful, rather than getting it right at the end of the unit. After all, as Florian reflects, what’s the point in giving people feedback they can’t use?
Designed for all assessment emphasises the role of practice tasks and formative, dialogic feedback in preparing students for assessment so that all students feel supported to succeed. Feedback must be constructive and actionable, highlighting what students are currently doing well and why, identifying specific areas for improvement and suggesting ways to improve. It might take the form of annotated comments within students’ written or recorded work, one-to-one or group meetings between tutors and students, or audio or screencast feedback. The tone and approach to feedback enables students to act on it.
One example of a designed for all approach to formative assessment and feedback is the use of formative ‘two-stage’ exams to help Year 3 and 5 medical students prepare for summative assessments where they have to make contextual, value judgements about the best diagnosis or treatment. In the first stage, students sit the practice exam individually. In the second, they form groups of six and sit the same exam again as a group, discussing their answers before submitting them via an online tool. This second stage is a valuable opportunity for students to engage in supportive, dialogic feedback with their group members before checking their answers and engaging in more dialogue with the tutor. Unlike a traditional mock exam, students learn through collaboration as well as practice. As Year 3 unit director Judith Fox observes, ‘when students are going through things in a group, they can help each other in a way that with just direct delivery to a large cohort, we wouldn’t be able to’.
Some of the features of authentic assessment are that it can often involve teamwork and collaboration, and it typicallyhas an audience beyond the person assessing it, with feedback coming from a variety of sources. This creates both accountability and a sense of agency, where students are encouraged to act on feedback from credible sources both within and outside of academia. One example of formative assessment and feedback within an authentic assessment approach is the final year design project in the Civil Engineering (MEng) programme. Design projects are industry-focused and require students to work in groups to complete a real-world challenge, such as renovating a stadium or extending a railway line, while paying careful attention to a range of technical requirements and the needs of the client. Early in the project, students have the opportunity to gather formative feedback on their designs from external collaborators, as well as peers and academics, through a poster session. For programme director Dimitris Karamitros, this event is ‘a lovely, interactive process, and a celebration of Civil Engineering… and it takes place early enough for groups to be able to change things’.
Do any of the examples of formative assessment and feedback shared here resonate with you? If you wanted to do something similar on your programme, how would you adapt them?
How do you incorporate formative assessment and feedback into your practice? How does your approach reflect the strategic priorities of integrated, designed for all and authentic assessment?
