One of the joys at working at a university and one of the key things I have missed during the pandemic was library access. I am a lifelong learner and I am always interested in resources that challenge my views and require reflection.
Most recently this has been Caroline Elbra-Ramsey’s book Understanding Feedback: A critical exploration for teacher educators. I am not the target audience for this book, but I would urge anyone who is involved in educating and educational development in any way to give it a read.
It made me think a lot about the feedback I gave as an educator to secondary pupils, the feedback I give as a peer reviewer in journals and the feedback I give to colleagues. It made me reflect on my own experiences of receiving feedback and how these shape the feedback that I give and how I approach deciding on the when, what and how of that feedback.
Most crucially it made me think about the why of feedback? Is the feedback we currently give for the facilitation of learning, or for some other purpose? Do we construct this learning with our learners or do we gift it to them?
Thinking back, there are many times when I continually gave feedback to students, much of which was repetitive. What purpose did this serve? Did it actually help the students in anyway? In retrospect I doubt it very much.
The medium of feedback delivery has evolved, the use of video and audio feedback is becoming commonplace but is this still primarily didactic than dialogic?
We often talk about the need for assessment literacy for students and for students to be able to identify the feedback received. But, what if, they are right? What if what we are giving is not truly feedback. Is not something co-constructed and a learning experience, but more a critique and requirement fulfilling exercise? How different would assessment and feedback processes look if we allowed the time and space for true dialogic feedback and assessment for learning?
At a time when we are reviewing our assessment practices, I believe it is critical that we not only review and reflect on the how but also the what and the why? What truly is the purpose of assessment and what role does feedback play? How do we design our assessments for learning and ensure that feedback is a dialogic and a learning experience?
That’s a really good point Sam. Could it be that we are so immersed in the process of completing the requirements of the ‘systems’ of education that we are blind to the usefulness of the outputs?
I would go further. I think that at times the ‘system’ blinds us to the ‘purpose’ of education. By purpose I don’t mean improvement in GDPR. I mean more broadly for the individual and society.
learning and ensure that feedback is a dialogic and a learning experience is good.