Over the past two years I tried to incorporate as many of David Boud’s feedback strategies as possible. In order to achieve this I used the power of examples and comparison in a first year course in Educational Sciences and I implemented comparative judgement as a new way of assessing student work. Even in the first weeks of their study programme, students became critical feedback users. As David said during his last visit: ‘You’ve got to get it right the first year, otherwise it’s too late.’ Specifically on this comment I noticed a bit of resistance with students and colleagues, mostly on trusting students in the feedback process this early in their study careers. How do you properly design teaching feedback literacy in that first year? When are you able to rely on first year students’ peer feedback? How do you get your colleagues to trust the peer feedback process? If you want to provide feedback on students’ feedback, how can you do this in practice? Very curious to talk about these questions!

The part-time Social Legal Services bachelor programme caters to people with a vocational degree and work experience in the field who want to advance in their profession and careers.

We created the SLS part-time FLEX programme that is practice-oriented; the students work on achieving these learning outcomes by working on real professional tasks/assignments in their own professional practice. The students individually choose which learning outcomes to work on at what time and which supporting lectures and workshops to attend, based on their prior knowledge and skills (flexible). In the program we work with challenges; these professionals to rise above their current level of competence.

The assessment in the SLS part-time FLEX programme is based on the learning outcomes. For each learning outcome, we defined the essential performance characteristics (aka learning objectives), which serve as the assessment criteria for the learning outcome. Each performance characteristic is scored separately, the combined scores on the performance indicators form the final verdict regarding the achievement of the learning outcome. In this sense, the assessment is analytic.

The holistic aspect is in the assessment of the performance characteristics; each performance characteristic is assessed as a whole, and not subdivided in criteria.

We designed a discussion tool for first-year students working on a group assignment. It starts with the feedback they have received from their instructor – using the assignment’s assessment criteria – on a draft version of the assignment. The discussion tool guides the students as a group in five steps by reading, discussing and incorporating this feedback into a plan of action, which they then discuss with the teacher. This process takes one hour. They begin with a first impression of the feedback and what emotions it evokes, first as an individual and then discuss it together. After this, they work individually to analyze the feedback – identifying strengths, new information, areas for improvement and surprises – then bring it together as a group and identify priorities and challenges. This is followed by drawing up a plan of action, in which the group describes for each assessment criterion what feedback they have received, how they are going to incorporate it and whether they have any questions about it. Finally, they discuss this plan with their teacher and they can execute the plan.

“Since I asked for feedback, I have achieved almost all the critical actions that I submitted,” according to a quote on September 27 from an H2 student who is now on schedule because she finished the Propaedeutic phase. As we know, feedback plays an important role in the design of our lessons. And rightly so, because feedback helps students to reflect on a learning process and therefore become a better teacher. That is why the ‘feedback literacy’ research group at Fontys Pabo – Den Bosch (Fontys Child & Education) has developed a tool; the feedback peer game. The feedback peer game is a simple tool to generate effective feedback. The game is played by peers in which students learn who they can ask for feedback, what the influence of the role of feedback provider is, what kind of feedback you can ask for as a student and how you can process it. During the study, a student is surrounded by different people, such as a mentor, a teacher, a training coach. Peers empathize with the different people and provide development-oriented feedback from that perspective. Various game variants have been developed so that the student can choose the game that best suits the relevant learning activity. The game looks attractive, invites you to play and is therefore accessible. The research group worked under the supervision of senior researcher Henderijn Heldens of the Fontys research group ‘Good teaching, good leadership’. This professorship focuses on the development of (future) teachers. One of the themes on which research is conducted within the professorship is the theme of ‘feedback literacy’. The research group has developed the tool (a game) using the Design Thinking research methodology. We would like to clarify the feedback game during the pitch.

Often received feedback is not processed. This stops the feedback process, leaving learning and development opportunities unused.

FeeDialogue is an educational group game that focuses on processing feedback. The game helps players move from feedback receiver to feedback user. In different rounds, players use different categories of cards with questions on them: reflection questions, action questions, finalizing questions and follow-up questions. The players ask each other the questions on the cards, answer them and are then having a dialogue about them together. This leads to different learning outcomes such as insights into behaviour, identity or next steps. Through this repeated process of handing out a card, answering and dialogue, all players give meaning to their own received feedback and help the other players in the group do the same.

FeeDialogue is available in Dutch and English. It is recommended to play the game with three or four players and to have a playing time of minimum 60 and maximum 120 minutes. Each player needs received feedback. The game also includes a unique NAN card. This secures a neutral and safe dialogue and facilitates a reflective dialogue in which each player is allowed to shape their own reflections and actions.

In implementing personalized learning, course programs in Dutch universities of applied sciences have started to implement the concept of programmatic assessment (Heeneman, et al., 2021), a concept which requires students to have self-regulating skills (Torre, Schuwirth, & Van der Vleuten, 2020). In programmatic assessment based  educational programs (e.g. Heeneman et al. 2021)  e-portfolios are often  employed as a tool for students to upload assignments and collect and organise feedback. The central question we aim to address in this research pertains to the ways in which the functionalities of e-portfolios (the collection of feedback, alignment with competencies and visualization of progress) can contribute to the cultivation of students’ self-regulatory skills: What information should an e-portfolio provide to enable its use in developing students’ self-regulation skills?

We are planning to research the following sub-questions: How do teachers use e-portfolios in their coaching of students on self-regulatory skills? How do students use e-portfolios to take ownership of their own development? During the discussion we would like to receive feedback on these research questions and a first draft on the materials prepared for the interviews and focusgroups we are planning to conduct.

Assessment in higher education (HE) is often focused on concluding modules with one or more tests that students need to pass. As a result, both students and teachers are primarily concerned with the summative function of assessment: information from tests is used to make pass/fail decisions about students. In recent years, increasing attention has been paid to the formative function of assessment and focus has shifted towards how assessment can stimulate learning. However, this also leads to a search for balance between both functions of assessment. Programmatic assessment (PA) is an assessment concept in which their intertwining is embraced to strike a new balance. A growing number of higher education programmes in the Netherlands has implemented PA. Although there is consensus about the theoretical principles that form the basis for the design of PA, programmes make various specific design choices based on these principles, fitting with their own context. This project provides insight into the design choices that programmes make when implementing PA and into the considerations that play a role in making these design choices. How could we use this framework to investigate the effects of different design choices within PA? How could we ‘sell’ the concept of programmatic assessment?

As educational advisers, we receive many queries about formative assessment, particularly concerning implementing the theory in daily educational practice.  We firmly believe that effective implementation and application of formative assessment necessitates in-depth knowledge, proper training, and extensive practice. Therefore, it is not possible to cover this topic adequately in a half-day training session and expect it to be applied appropriately in practice.

That’s why the Expertisegroep toetsen en beoordelen at Hogeschool Rotterdam has created a four-day training programme for teachers. Spread over six months, this initiative enables teachers to understand the intricacies of formative assessment and feedback, apply the techniques learned in practice and integrate them into their courses by revamping an existing programme using the ABC learning design method. In addition to attending training days, teachers also participate in lessons from colleagues to apply formative assessment, which is used as content for intervision meetings.

With a group of enthusiastic practioners and researchers the Boud & Dawson (2021) paper on teacher feedback literacy competencies was studied. We discussed the three levels and struggled a lot connecting the levels to the Dutch higher education context. This interesting work and our discussions motivated the group to transform the framework into a practical ’teacher feedback literacy’ model. In the model feedback processes regarding the educational (re)design (on meso-level) and regarding the guidance and support of student feedback literacy (on meso and micro level) are visualized. Next, competencies were described as learning outcomes, for each element of the model. One of the outcomes of our discussions is that we see teacher feedback literacy on the teacher level and the team level. Also school culture and feedback culture play a role in developing teacher feedback literacy. We would like to pitch our model and reflect on the competency framework (Boud & Dawson, 2021) and its translation into our practical model.