Feedback tend to focus on current performance, to be on summative submissions and often to justify the grade. Giving a “combination of feedback and feed forward ensures that assessment has an effective developmental impact on learning” (Ferrell & Gray, 2016). And is this not what assessment as learning should really encourage ?

Social constructivist approaches to giving feedback, refers to situations where “shared and individual interpretations are developed through dialogue, sense-making and through co-construction between participants” (Carless & Boud, 2018: 2).

This fits well with practices enabling the development of students' self-judgement skills informed by opportunities for observation, imitation, participation and ultimately engaging in a dialogue with you as tutor and with their peers. (Bloxham & Campbell, 2010)

Such practices has great potential to get students to respond timely to feedback and see themselves as “agents of their own change” (Boud & Molloy, 2013:12), thus essentially become feedback literate.

Good feedback is more likely to have a positive impact if it:

• Encourages attention to and effort focused on the assessment task;
• Motivates the student to continue enhancing their first draft;
• Provides evidence of (and give recognition to) good practice;
• Clarifies the expected standards and
• Signposts to where, what and how to improve.

Moving to feedforward feedback, or “work in progress” or “en route” to submission, allow for more constructive guidance enabling timely enhancement. This type of feedforward feedback, can include:

• Feedback on drafts submitted by students;
• Helpful hints and tips to improve current state of the task, timely;
• Highlighting potential issues such plagiarism;
• Sampling of drafts identifying strengths and areas for improvement;
• Generic feedback or guidance;
• Reminders to students of what the tutor learned from errors in previous submissions;
• Audio or video recordings of feedback and
• guidance accessible to students any time, any place.

Feedforward practices are best put in place at various stages of the students’ assessment journey. An example of actions to take are outlined below in three steps:

A FIRST STEP

When launching an assessment task, guide students to create a plan for the assignment. This can be done in class (or online), in small groups where students create a plan using flipcharts or mind mapping tools, e.g. (Padlet) where they can list key areas to explore, possible headings, subheadings, verbs used, and give an initial justification for their approach. Peer review thus taking place at an early stage, and guided by the tutor.

A SECOND STEP

Once a clear plan has been developed, as second stage could be to explore literature, check validity, summarise, critique and practice. Exploring these drafts, guided by the tutor can allow for early feedback, both from peers and the tutor. At this stage, you may also ask for drafts to be submitted, see earlier ideas suggested to give feedback on draft submissions.

A THIRD STEP

Create opportunities (or encourage students) to write a brief reflection (or action plan) following steps 1 and 2, on how this will shape their final submission, what changes they plan, what will they do what differently, etc. Allow this output to be submitted with the final submission and perhaps give some credit (marks).

Feedforward comments should not be seen as only feedback on “work in progress”, but feedback on summative submissions can feed forward, should the tutor include comments that focus on future development and opportunities for enhancement, beyond the task submitted.

References and further reading

• Ferrell, G. & Gray, L. (2016) Feedback and feed forward: Using technology to support students’ progression over time. A JISC publication. Available: https://www.jisc.ac.uk/guides/feedback-and-feed-forward
• Bloxham, S., and L. Campbell. 2010. “Generating Dialogue in Assessment Feedback: Exploring the Use of Interactive Cover Sheets.” Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education 35 (3): 291–300.
• Boud, D. and Molloy, E. (2013). Rethinking models of feedback for learning: the challenge of design. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, 38, 6, 698-712.
• Carless, D. & Boud, D. (2018) The development of student feedback literacy: enabling uptake of feedback. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education. Available: https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2018.1463354