Contextual Background

In the MA Design for Data Visualisation course where I teach as a 0.6 lecturer, we provide written feedback for each of the five unit submissions.  

Challenges/opportunities: It is a challenge to not fall into a pattern of broad feedback when working against the clock. Specific feedback will contribute to the overall arc of student development, but there are only two of us who do assessments, and this is sometimes the first instance of me seeing any of the projects from the units I don’t deliver.

Evaluation

Current strategies for meeting student needs: 

• During Term 2, I provide weekly one-to-one tutorials for the Unit 3 Final Major Project Proposal to provide support and feedback. 
• During Term 1, I read and provided written feedback for submission drafts. 
• For Unit 4 (Collaborative Unit), which I don’t deliver, I don’t provide written feedback and only do co-grading.  

Effectiveness of my approach(es): 

I don’t deliver sessions for Unit 3 and only have thirty minutes with each student every other week to give feedback; however, these sessions tend to be incredibly helpful for the students and me. These tutorials have also been hugely beneficial for building a working rapport with students that crosses over into my Unit 2 delivery and the classroom dynamics.  

Moving Forwards

“Feedback works best when it makes a clear statement of intent, is focused, and constructive” (Brooks, 2008). Occasional co-teaching would help me become more familiar with the submissions ahead of time and give me more context to provide focused feedback.  

However, there are some limitations to being able to implement this. We must be sure delivery of three units is covered and overseen by just two of us during the second term and limited contract hours make schedule flexibility a challenge. Additionally, I need to maintain room for reflection of my own teaching practice and manage work pressures (Thompson and Thompson, 2008) by not working too far beyond my contract hours.  

More structured feedback sessions in the units and sessions I do deliver will provide more opportunities for me to contribute to the overall development of student design practice and learning.  

I will also explore opportunities to discuss assessment feedback. We don’t currently do that. Not giving the students an opportunity to discuss feedback can hamper their engagement and can “reinforce students’ negative thinking that each piece of work is ‘done now’ and no longer relevant to learning” (Brooks, 2008).  

References

Brooks, K. (2008) ‘Could do Better?’: students’ critique of written feedback. University of the West of England, Bristol. 

Thompson, S. and Thompson, N. (2008) The Critically Reflective Practitioner. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke. pp. 55–76.