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The landscape of learning and formative feedback
knowledge or skills” (2005, p.106). When a student engages in formative feedback with a lecturer, they have the opportunity to refine and reflect on a piece of their work before final submission, thereby creating self-regulation and honing crucial reflective skills that are necessary for higher-level thinking. Formulating strategies for crafting and delivering feedback is essential to student learning. According to Nicol and Macfarlane-Dick (2006), good feedback: 1. helps clarify what good performance is (goals, criteria, expected standards); 2. facilitates the development of reflection and selfassessment in learning; 3. delivers high quality information to students about their learning; 4. encourages teacher and peer dialogue around learning; 5. encourages positive motivational beliefs and self-esteem; 6. provides opportunities to close the gap between current and desired performance; 7. provides information to teachers that can be used to help shape the teaching. The quality and timeliness of formative and summative feedback given to students contributes fundamentally to their engagement and success. The realm of formative feedback can be occupied not only by the lecturer; this type of feedback is being utilised as a vehicle to engage peer learning and assessment, applying critical frames to each other’s work. In so doing, the student refines their skill in assessing work, and valuable collaborative learning is achieved. The inclusion of student derived marking criteria in formative (as well as summative) feedback has been in practice for the last decade formally and inclusion in assessment design is common in best practice. Orsmond et al’s (2002) work from Staffordshire University is worth noting here. In this study, a student constructed formative criteria is outlined with exemplars, and shows that student judgment can be more objective as a result of peer assessment in comparison to self-assessment. That formative feedback is a crucial tool in the arsenal of the lecturer is well supported by the literature. The challenge is how to incorporate this ‘best practice’ into the real lives of learners and educators. The ‘How’ of the delivery of this feedback can be particularly challenging; feedback forms can be arduous to fill in, and larger class sizes mean delivering face-to-face feedback can be nearly impossible in a timely manner. Through the suite of digital tools available, particularly by what Steven Gilbert identifies as ‘low threshold applications’ or LTAs (2002), this task can be made more time effective and can help to ensure the timely incorporation of formative feedback for student’s learning.
LTAs are easy to learn, open source or low cost software solutions that are reliable and effective. According to Gilbert, “a new large group of mainstream faculty members [are] more likely to be receptive to what they perceive as only a modest change in their identity, role or workload that might be imposed by new teaching and learning applications” (2002). According to student feedback from a 2010 study undertaken in the Dublin Institute of Technology, Ireland, the integration of easy to use technologies in higher education ‘beneficially transforms learning, but will never replace lecturers’ (O’Donnell, 2010). The use of audio feedback as a tool for formative (and summative) assessment is one way forward to unlock time and create valuable feedback for student work. Audio feedback can be created in less time than written feedback by most lecturers, and the spoken word can be a richer medium to deliver feedback (Rotheram, 2009). The ‘Sounds Good’ project from Leeds Met over 2008 and 2009 outlines criteria that can optimize the utilisation of audio feedback for assessment: 1. The assessor is comfortable with technology, 2. the assessor writes or types slowly and records their speech quickly, 3. a substantive amount of feedback is given, and 4. a quick and easy method of delivering the audio file to the student is available. (Rotheram, 2009) Though three of the four criteria focus on the assessor, the fourth, a ‘quick and easy method’ of delivery is worth considering. Audio files are easily disseminated via email and other media sharing platforms. The prevalence of iPhones and other smart phones mean that recording devices are in our pockets and are readily available, though the cost of these devices should be considered and may be prohibitive for some students and lecturers. Online open source platforms like ‘Vocaroo’ (www.vocaroo.com) are easily accessed through the internet and require a built-in or USB microphone for the laptop or desktop computer; which anyone who uses ‘Skype’ (www.skype.com) will be familiar. In this study Leeds Met students were ‘overwhelmingly positive’ in response to whether audio feedback improves the students learning experience, citing the personal nature of the detail provided as evidence that the lecturer had carefully considered their submitted work (Rotheram, 2009). Lecturers commented that the use of audio feedback “allowed them to give more, higher quality feedback” (Rotheram, 2009). The personal nature of audio feedback may be further enhanced by the inclusion of image, or video. In this context, the use of ‘Mailvu’ (www.mailvu.com) as a low-cost tool for audio-visual feedback via email can be considered. Mailvu is an easy to use tool, and fits well within Gilbert’s definition