How feedback is provided and collecting feedback given for returned work. In each year of your studies you will receive regular feedback. This helps both students and teachers maximise the effectiveness of learning and teaching, and to enhance performance. Feedback comes in many forms and from different sources. It can be any comment from another person that may result in improving your learning and understanding. What is Feedback A common misconception is to think that feedback is only provided as the written word on a marked piece of work. Whilst feedback can take this form, the vast majority of feedback you will receive during your university career is not associated with a mark. Feedback could be: while a staff member explains the answer to a problem during a tutorial class during a discussion at the end of a lecture receiving guidance on experimental technique during a practical class Feedback is generally provided on all items of in-course assessment and exams. Feedback from Teaching Staff and Peers All members of the teaching team are strongly committed to providing you with feedback throughout the entire programme. Feedback could come from a variety of sources including, but not restricted to: Lecturers, Tutors, Demonstrators, Floor-leaders, Course Organisers and Cohort Leads Importantly, feedback also comes from your student peers. We encourage you to form study groups and not to only work in isolation. Peer feedback may be received: In your tutorials and workshops you will discuss topics with your peers and tutor and get feedback from both. If you have laboratory practicals you will get feedback from your peers, demonstrators and floor-leader. When you discuss the course content with your peers. Types of Feedback Formative feedback Formative feedback is ongoing feedback which monitors your learning and is intended to improve your performance both later in the same course, in future courses and also beyond your studies. This can take many forms. Informal verbal feedback from the teaching staff within class, or discussions with peers about course content during study groups. Formal verbal feedback such as a lecture detailing the common errors the class made, designed to help the whole class improve on work to be marked in the future. Written feedback, e.g. on a practice essay or report that you are asked to provide early on in a course, that is not formally marked. Think of formative feedback as ‘feed-forward’ feedback, such as submitting a draft essay for early comments before finalising. Summative Feedback The goal of summative feedback is to evaluate your learning at the end of a course or unit by comparing it against some standard or benchmark. Summative feedback will include the mark given for your coursework or exams with some explanation as to the grade awarded. This explanation should reference, or be related to, the specification of the coursework in question. Summative feedback often includes formative feedback, or can be used formatively when students or staff use it to guide their efforts and activities in subsequent courses/assessments. Think of summative feedback as a summary of how you have done in a particular component of assessment, such as the final grade for your research project and comments explaining why you achieved that grade. Benefiting from Feedback It is your responsibility to collect marked work from the Biology Teaching Organisation (BTO), or to view it online. When marked work is returned to you, you should read and think about the feedback given and not just look at the mark. The feedback gives you an indication of what you did well, what you misunderstood and what you did not address correctly. Thus it is the feedback that will help you in your future studies. Feedback to us Every year students help us by giving us feedback about our courses. Student Feedback This article was published on 2024-06-17
