Getting feedback on your work helps you learn and you have told us how important that is to you. So, the Students’ Union has run campaigns on increasing the amount of feedback given and how it is made available to you, and your teaching staff have worked with student reps and others to put new feedback practices in place.
Your Department or School’s policy on providing feedback on assessed work to students can be found in your programme handbook.
How to make sure you are using all the feedback that is available to you
Feedback from peers: fellow students on your programme are working as hard as you are on getting ahead. Have you tried to work together with your peers on those Maths problems, reviewed each others’ essays and reports, or compared how you are preparing for your exams? Whilst it is always important to ensure that your work remains entirely your own, many students have some informal type of ‘study group’ in place: they meet up regularly to compare notes, share problems and solutions and talk through each other’s work.
Feedback in class: during lectures, seminars, labs or tutorials, you are working on your subject and getting comments and advice from staff on what you have done so far or what you intend to do next. That too is feedback to help you learn. Don’t hesitate to ask questions to check your knowledge and understanding. Take every opportunity to get as much out of such classes as you can. In class use of the Audience Response System is now increasing and can give you feedback on your knowledge and understanding of the subject.
Feedback on assessed work:
- Make sure you pick up your assignments/ lab reports after they are marked and note carefully the comments written on them, not just the mark!
- Have a chat with your fellow students about their assessed work and exam solutions as this often highlights areas where you have done well or could have done better.
- If you have electronically submitted coursework to your department using Moodle, you should receive an email notification when your tutor has provided feedback.
- Sometimes you can get feedback on your exams, although the way that this is provided will vary depending on your subject. Model answers may be returned or posted on Moodle, feedback on commonly made mistakes may be given, or feedback sheets may be returned after your exam is marked.
- Make the effort to go and see your tutor following your exams as their advice on good exam technique can make a real difference to your future performance.
- Find out what the arrangements are and make sure that you benefit from them!
Personal Tutorial system: have you seen your Personal Tutor to discuss your academic progress? Don’t hesitate to discuss with your Personal Tutor any areas which are causing you problems, or how you can get support to help you improve. That is what they are there for! Feel free to contact your Personal Tutor when you need to – you don’t need to wait for them to contact you.
Online feedback: don’t underestimate how online resources can help you: if your unit exists on Moodle and there is a discussion forum, then that’s a good place to ask for feedback. If there are online tutors, use them. Some departments give out model answers to past exam papers online or provide feedback from previous years so that you can learn from the mistakes others have made in the past, so see what’s there. And if you’re getting ready for an exam when you read this: read back through comments made during online debates and you’re likely to find there is feedback on just the questions you are trying to tackle now. If not, just pose a question online, as it’s likely that you won’t be the only one who would like to know the answer!
Many lecturers create self paced quizzes in Moodle (often multiple choice questions) which can help you self-assess your knowledge and understanding, or include questions and quizzes during lectures.
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