Improving feedback and developing student feedback literacy

The Scientia Education Academy is delighted to welcome Professor Phillip Dawson from Deakin University.

Feedback can be one of the most challenging parts of not just education, but of life in general. Giving, receiving, understanding and coping with comments about our work is hard. The workload of feedback can also be a significant challenge for staff, who often report that students do not even read assignment feedback comments, let alone action them. The struggles with feedback are only magnified in large classes.

This session focuses on developing the capabilities required for effective feedback, building on Boud and Dawson’s teacher feedback literacy competency framework, which was developed from two large Australian government funded learning and teaching projects. It explores what can be done to improve student feedback literacy: their capability to seek out feedback, make sense of it, use it, and work with their emotions through the process.

About the Speaker

Professor Phillip Dawson

Co-Director, Centre for Research in Assessment and Digital Learning (CRADLE) at Deakin University

Professor Phillip (Phill) Dawson is the Co-Director of the Centre for Research in Assessment and Digital Learning (CRADLE) at Deakin University. His feedback research focuses on feedback design and feedback literacy. Phill has received four university-level teaching and learning awards, as well as a citation from the Australian Learning and Teaching Council. He was co-lead of the Assessment Design Decisions project and a chief investigator of the Feedback for Learning project. He is currently leading the Australian Research Council Discovery Project Feedback literacy for effective learning at university and beyond. His most recent books include Defending Assessment Security in a Digital World and the co-edited volume Re-imagining University Assessment in a Digital World. In his spare time, Phill performs improv comedy in the academia-themed show The Peer Revue.