Teaching with assessment, feedback and feed-forward: using ‘preflights’ to assist student achievement

<p class="abstract">Assessment feedback is an important part of students’ learning experiences; however, text-based feedback has limitations. This article proposes an alternative in the form of individualised video recordings of the lecturer discussing each assignment. This research reports on 126 undergraduate and postgraduate students’ reactions to 5-minute videos recorded by their teachers. The findings confirm that the majority of students valued the video feedback over text-based forms. In particular, video-based feedback was reported by students as being individualised (specific) and personalised (valorising identity and effort); supportive, caring and motivating; clear, detailed and unambiguous; prompting reflection; and constructive, which led to future strategising. Several potential weaknesses were also identified, including an initial anxiety about watching the videos, and the difficulty in matching the comments in the video-based feedback to the text-based assignment. Like the students, the teachers also reported that they valued the video feedback process, particularly in terms of being more time-efficient, facilitating quality especially in the form of feed forward comments, and rejuvenating teacher enthusiasm. The article concludes with implications for future research.</p><p> </p>

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Can Relational Feed-Forward Enhance Students’ Cognitive and Affective Responses to Assessment?

Teaching & Learning Inquiry The ISSOTL Journal ◽

10.20343/teachlearninqu.9.2.18 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 9 (2) ◽

Author(s):

Jennifer Hill ◽

Kathy Berlin ◽

Julia Choate ◽

Lisa Cravens-Brown ◽

Lisa McKendrick-Calder ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Undergraduate Teaching ◽

Structured Interviews ◽

Student Responses ◽

Feed Forward ◽

Assessment Feedback ◽

Learning Attitudes ◽

Key Characteristics ◽

Ongoing Assessment ◽

Academic Year

Assessment feedback should be an integral part of learning in higher education, but students can find this process emotionally and cognitively challenging. Instructors need to consider how to manage students’ responses to feedback so that students feel capable of improving their work and maintaining their wellbeing. In this paper, we examine the role of instructor-student relational feed-forward, enacted as a dialogue relating to ongoing assessment, in dissipating student anxiety, enabling productive learning attitudes and behaviours, and supporting wellbeing. We undertook qualitative data collection within two undergraduate teaching units that were adopting a relational feed-forward intervention over the 2019–2020 academic year. Student responses were elicited via small group, semi-structured interviews and personal reflective diaries, and were analysed inductively using thematic analysis. The results demonstrate that relational feed-forward promotes many elements of student feedback literacy, such as appreciating the purpose and value of feedback, judging work against a rubric, exercising volition and agency to act, and managing affect. Students were keen for instructors to help them manage their emotions related to assessment, believing this would promote their wellbeing. We conclude by exploring academic strategies and pedagogies that position relational instructor feed-forward as an act of care, and we summarize the key characteristics of emotionally resonant relational feed-forward meetings.

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