Faculty Liaison Librarian, Medicine & Dentistry
Feedback sessions are intended to provide a platform for peer to peer feedback exchange. This is an effective way for students to learn and reflect on their mistakes. Following the feedback exercise (on Evidence Based Dentistry), students are expected to be in a better position to formulate a research question, search for evidence on databases and choose evidence that is relevant to their research question.
The feedback activity is designed to provide an opportunity for students to revise and prepare for their upcoming summative assessments using mock tests which then allow students to provide formative feedback to one another.
Students are given an activity to complete and submit on QMplus within 24 hours. Each student is then assigned submissions from two peers on which to provide useful, and constructive feedback prior to the workshop. The workshop is then used as a platform to review feedback that each student provided and received from their peers.
Many of the merits of the peer to peer feedback method are reflected in the feedback obtained from students through post-workshop evaluation forms. Our methods are student centered therefore comments from students on workshops are important and serve as an indicator of how effective the approach is.
At least 71% of students that have participated in the sessions felt that the peer to peer feedback method was useful.
From the feedback design;
students are able to practice different scenarios and receive peer feedback inline with the assessment criteria used in summative assessments.
students get a first hand experience in the marking process which helps them better understand what makes a good submission/script
accessing and marking work submitted by fellow classmates allows students to learn from mistakes made by their peers
Feedback may not be as accurate while comments may likely be negative than constructive or balanced if expectations are not clearly set and managed.
due to time constraints, students may only be able to provide feedback to one or two peers, which potentially gives them a fairly limited perspective
with the current demand for mixed mode teaching and learning, conducting the workshop both online and in-person concurrently can be challenging. Managing time and activities while ensuring that the technical set up allows for equal participation of students off and online may be demanding.
Adding a Workshop activity
Student evaluation from the 2021 and 2022 academic years show that 100% of the respondents felt that the activity helped them prepare for their exam. Themes emerging from free-text comments include:
After doing this as a fully-in person activity, and then a fully online activity during Covid, it is now offered in a blended format. Students do the assessment in-person, as they would for the real exam, but are then asked to provide feedback to two peers within the next few days. This approach seems to work well for the students, as it gives them more realistic practice for the real exam. It also allows them to give and receive feedback from two peers. It is effective for tutors as they do not have to try and do the administrative tasks while the students are in the room.