4. Other types of feedback
While students expect to be assessed and receive feedback from an instructor, there are two other valuable sources of feedback in the learning environment:
- Peers: As discussed in the notes in Module 5, students’ peers are invaluable sources of knowledge and feedback. It is a good idea to arrange your course in such a way that students can learn from one another. For example, peer review exercises, in which students comment on the work of their peers, encourage them to identify and develop academic standards that they can transfer to their own work. At times, peer feedback may be better received than feedback from authority figures, due to the rapport and relationships that students may establish with their peers (Nicol & Macfarlane-Dick, 2006).
- Self: Encouraging students to become reflective about their own learning, and providing opportunities for them to evaluate their own performance in a class can be highly valuable. By providing students with opportunities for self-assessment, you are encouraging them to become more invested in and self-reflective about their academic performance. Ideally, students will take ownership of their learning. They may develop or enhance their growth mindsets by attributing their academic performance to themselves and the effort they put in rather than external, potentially unrelated factors (Fernandes & Fontana, 1996).
As a teacher, it is important not only to provide students with opportunities to engage with peer feedback and self-evaluation, but also to encourage them to leverage this feedback to improve their performance and enrich their learning experience.
