(authored with Darcey Gillie @dfgillie)
The Problem
After each year’s Nation Student Survey (NSS) there is a predictable sequence that I have experienced in three Engineering Departments over several years. It goes like this:
Students: Give a low NSS feedback score
Institution: PANIC!! Do SOMETHING! Make an action-plan! Measure it! Write it !
Academics: But we give feedback! Look! Students want spoon-feeding!
This is a deeply unhealthy situation with no one happy and no one seemingly able to improve things. I think it results from insufficient consideration by academics and institutional leaders of what effective feedback actually is and, because of this, an assumption that the problem requires changes to process, audit, measurement and enforcement, rather than changes to teaching practice. Continue reading