The Assessment & Feedback Practice & Policy workstream would like to remind colleagues of the effective steps to provide feedback on assessment to students. Breaking this down into four key areas, we hope this content acts as a reminder to support student learning.

Further learning and teaching support can be found on the Learning & Teaching webpages.

 Timely responses

  • Start marking as soon as possible after the submission deadline has passed.
  • You don’t need to wait for all students to submit before starting marking.
  • Return feedback within the 15 working day limit, or before the next piece of related assessment (whichever is earlier). This enables students to manage their assessments effectively.

 Constructive & concise comments

  • Align your grades and comments with the marking criteria – and make sure your marking criteria align with your learning outcomes!
  • Give constructive comments and suggest ways to improve in future (feed-forward).
  • Avoid writing long and elaborate feedback.
  • Don’t be too negative – often the critical comments are all the student remembers

 Clarification on feedback and the opportunity for discussion

  • Give students opportunities for follow-up conversations (e.g. in drop-in hours or via email).

 Open communications

  • Agreed standard wording around return dates and expectations and put this on Moodle for all students to see – this contributes to a consistent student experience.
  • Let students know the reason if there’s a delay in returning grades, and feedback is unavoidable (e.g. marker is unwell). Give a new return date.
  • Don’t rely only on email to communicate deadlines to students – make sure information can be accessed at any time, e.g. in a clearly labelled section on Moodle
  • Ensure that second-marking/moderation processes are aligned with the Guide to the Code of Assessment.

 

First published: 11 December 2024

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