Learning from and Engaging with Assessment and Feedback (LEAF): Growing Practice

Abstract

The LEAF (Learning from and Engaging with Assessment and Feedback) project addressed a key issue in third-level teaching and learning: assessment and feedback. The LEAF team comprised 18 academics from across the TU Dublin City Campus and representatives from all Colleges, along with the Director of Student Affairs and the Students’ Union Education Officer. This paper presents the findings of the LEAF project. Assessment strategies have been shown to have a large impact on shaping student learning process strategies which feedforward into key employability skills. Learning from best practice, surveys from staff and students and analysis of the quality documents, the project developed a set of recommendations to enhance practices in assessment and feedback. Many challenges were identified over the course of this project in relation to the timeliness, amount and quality of feedback, assessment load, burden on staff and students, student expectations, monologue versus dialogue approach to feedback, inconsistency across programmes and poor integration of assessment and feedback into the academic quality framework. Key drivers identified throughout the project that are necessary to enhance assessment and feedback strategies include adequate resourcing, alignment of assessment with graduate attributes, inclusion of the student voice and more widespread use of technology.

Keywords

• assessment
• feedback
• Technological University
• organisational culture
• assessment culture