Discussing assessment and feedback has always been a bit of a grey area for me, as a technician who has nothing had nothing to do with grading or assessment, I have always felt that it had nothing to do with me or my department. Recently, technicians in my department have been invited into live assessments to be able to give technical feedback – we have little to no say in the final mark, but we can lend our specialist opinion to the unit leaders and markers. Due to this recent change, I have been slapped in the face with my complete lack of knowledge surrounding all of it.
I chose to read “Formative assessment and self-regulated learning: a model and seven principles of good feedback practice” (Nicol, D. J. & Macfarlane-Dick, D., 2006) for one of our workshops and I’m really glad I did as its description of feedback and assessment was a description of things I am already doing in my job role. Whilst not all of the seven principles listed by Nicol and Macfarlane-Dick (2006) apply to me in my technical role, but there were two in particular that really stood out to me: 4. Encourage teacher and peer dialogue and 5. Encourage positive motivation and self-esteem. I often see students in more informal and casual ways – ad hoc 121s and supervised studio session are the most common. I did not classify what I was doing in those sessions as feedback purely as it was more informal, but I see now that it was. Almost every interaction I have with a student regarding something technical that I am helping them with is feedback and recognizing that will help with my eventual involvement in formal assessment and feedback sessions.
Nicol, D. J., & Macfarlane-Dick, D. (2006) ‘Formative assessment and self-regulated learning: a model and seven principles of good feedback practice’, Studies in Higher Education, Volume 31 Number 2, pp. 199-218.