All Things University: Responding to Feedback

 

Feedback is a crucial part of the learning process when you're at university and not everyone knows how to fully respond to it. In today's I want to talk to you about how I go through my feedback and the best ways you can learn from it. 

In order to achieve higher grades, reading and acting upon lecturer feedback is essential. I would always plan specific feedback sessions into my weekly planner, whether this involves going through feedback independently or going to see the lecturer during their office hours. 

As you can see below , I've taken one of my assignments and gone through and responded to the feedback I received. This allowed me to understand where I needed to make improvements and helped me with future assignments. This is particularly important in first year where your overall grade doesn't count towards your end degree. Use this freedom to experiment with different writing techniques and find the style that works for you and gets you the best grades.

Responding to feedback is a crucial part of the learning process and is a skill you'll develop throughout the course of your degree. clarifying these points with academic staff not only strengthens your relationship with them but shows that you have the initiative and drive to succeed in an academic environment. 

I also want to talk about some of the common suggestions with certain feedback, some lecturers can be very vague and it can be hard to understand what they're asking you to improve on. One of the main ones will be to improve your overall essay structure... but what does this actually mean? 

Improving the structure of your essay can mean a number of things, for example; proofreading finer details, ensuring you have coherent paragraphs and even basic things like sentence structure. Referencing can also be a huge factor in feedback, so ensure you're using the correct style and make sure to google your style guide, this will show you how to reference each type of source and get you higher marks within this category of the rubric. 

Online learning can often make you feel like you're lacking in academic support and just as a reminder, academic staff are paid to be there for you. It is their job to answer your questions and give you the necessary support, never feel like you can't ask for help. That said talking to other students can be a great and informal way of going through feedback and learning from each other's mistake. 

As my Italian lecturer tells me, perfectionism is a form of anxiety and the sooner we all learn to see our mistakes as a learning experience the better, this is an amazing opportunity to learn and grow within your field of study.

Coronavirus is spreading, let's all play our part to keep our loved ones safe. Remember to observe social distancing guidelines, wear a mask and keep up to date with government legislation. 

Stay Safe xx