Audio-feedback Background – why I did it. My experiences – what I did. Student feedback – how did it go?

Assessment MY AIMS: Apply clear and transparent criteria on how to assess student work Be fair and consistent (from the beginning to the end of the day!) Give useful feedback that the students can learn from ie positive but also stretching MY WORRIES: Students paying no attention to my carefully crafted feedback comments and only looking at the mark Students not collecting marked work after the module has finished

Assessment – Multiple purposes To make academic judgements on student achievement To help our students improve their performance and enhance achievement Assessment for Grading:Assessment for Learning: Programme Assessment Boards Module Assessment Boards Assessment Criteria Formative Assessment Feedback

Audio feedback I sat with my laptop and an old headset with microphone. Aimed to say something NICE, something IMPORTANT and something PRACTICAL (a) Portfolio – already marked and verbalised my feelings about the work (b) Lab report – read through each section making comments at the time

Generic feedback Individual feedback – I felt I was really talking to the student and that I could be more specific and personal. Each sound file was 3-5 minutes long which enabled me to give much more than the few lines written on a piece of work or described in a generic feedback sheet I enjoyed the marking!

Student feedback ‘After listening to the audio files for the feedback of both pieces of coursework, I believe that it is a great idea. It allows a personal one to one feeling of feedback while sitting at home. It saves trailing to uni to find out the feedback with no guarantee of catching the lecturer.’ ‘I second that xxx, Great Idea for audio feedback, surely we should have a whole section for podcasts of all sorts, it was nice to consider Dr Anne going personal on each audio recording. Hope this is the future for feedback! Hope it is used in the future, good idea!!!!!’ ‘Wow this was kool to listen to, easy clear and straightforward, its the kind of feedback you cant refuse to hear, once you press play you get the good points and the bad points, when i came on to listen to it, i was like oh dear this could be sad news and was scared of listening to it but i like the completeness of the feedback, sure things that have been helpful and i think i will be better doing the samething now even without seeing the returned work. Thanks Anne and i think this was a great idea and surely audio feedback is a plus’ ‘i did not notice the audio feedback until i came on webct to look for the exam results. this system is really good especially being all the way in malaysia. thanks for the feedback’

FTDL5 project: Peer Review Peer review is seen as a “method of encouraging students to discuss and compare their understanding of scientific writing and the assessment criteria adopted by academics in the field”. The peer review process will be developed over the course of a semester, with students arranged into groups of critical friends in Week 2 as part of a Critical Paper Review Workshop in which the analysis of research articles will be addressed. At a subsequent Essay Writing Workshop, exemplars will be discussed and students will peer review draft assignments to be submitted as part of their module portfolio. Thereafter the drafting process will continue and students will also receive individual and generic feedback on their drafts before final submission. “It is hoped that the reiteration of research, synthesis and feedback will effectively replace one to one tutor support and enhance the students’ scientific writing and citing skills”.

Tutor workshop (Sept 08) The practicalities of writing - Monica Price Extracts from a tutor workshop: what do we value in your work? Writing in your own words - Noel Carter Extracts from a tutor workshop: what do we value in your work? Focus on the question - Keith Thomas Extracts from a tutor workshop: what do we value in your work? Getting to grips with the literature - Mark Davies Extracts from a tutor workshop: what do we value in your work? Strengths and weaknesses - Poorna Gunasekera Extracts from a tutor workshop: what do we value in your work? An outsiders view of the discussions - Joan O'Keefe Extracts from a tutor workshop: what do we value in your work? Plus a bit of a rambling discussion...

Student feedback – to date ‘I thought the feedback was excellent, the whole idea of audio feedback is great and I definitely support its use. It helped highlight the important points of improvement and the fact that your voice could be heard made it more relevant and 'true'. I have a learnt a great deal. Thank you.’ ‘I found the audio feedback very useful and better than lecturers notes written on a piece of work. However, i dont think that the generic audio feeback is as useful as the personal audio feedback that was given for each group's work.’

Final thoughts Rewarding process – I feel the effort I put into marking is being more effectively shared with my students Almost ‘micro-teaching’ and enables mini-tutorials that are focussed and specific Universally positive feedback from students: I am a convert! ‘well, again. The feedback is awesome because most of my weakness had been mentioned which is going to help me improve my skills on critical review. I will further my scope on the wider region and not only on the paper itself so i think i will do better next time. thanks again for the audio feedback.”’