Nifty footwork, a spectacular firework and a delicious flapjack: a blog series on feedback 

Feedback. There are not a huge number of 8 letter words in English starting with f and finishing with k. It would be a challenging (and somewhat odd) premise to base a blog series connecting feedback to footwork, a flapjack or perhaps a firework.  

Suffice to say, this series doesn’t advocate for simply roaming the corridors singing the feedback anthem of ‘more, more, more, how do you like it?’.  

As a starting point, BILT has previously covered some of the salient points around feedback. However, as a pithy summary of what is increasingly seen as an effective model, Boud and Molloy’s call for feedback to be ‘repositioned as a fundamental part of curriculum design, not an episodic mechanism delivered by teachers to learners’ is perhaps a helpful starting point.  

So what are the some of the fundamental challenges often experienced around feedback? In no particular order we might consider:  

• A feeling there is a lack of detail or specificity in the feedback comments 
• The tone of feedback comments 
• Feedback looking ‘backwards’ and not felt to be applicable to subsequent learning/assessment 
• Support for understanding how to act on feedback 
• How feedback cycles can lead to responsive teaching and learning opportunities 

So why is this worth time for deliberate practice and reflection? One student previously described an assessment as something that ‘almost like you live with it’. Much of the TESTA project research outlines the fundamental affective role of feedback in students’ experiences of HE.  

If you’re developing any approaches to feedback practices, or have seen some great examples of feedback in action, let us know. Otherwise we look forward to seeing you for the next blog in this series….