University of Birmingham LC Developing Skills for Psychologists/Neuroscientists 1 PDF

University of Birmingham Dubai Campus LC Developing Skills for Psychologists/Neuroscientists 1 Preparing for assessments and learning from feedback Lecture Overview Taking notes in lectures Preparing for assessments Learning from feedback Taking notes in lectures Taking / Making Notes What...

University of Birmingham Dubai Campus LC Developing Skills for Psychologists/Neuroscientists 1 Preparing for assessments and learning from feedback Lecture Overview Taking notes in lectures Preparing for assessments Learning from feedback Taking notes in lectures Taking / Making Notes Whatever you are creating notes for, make sure that your approach is fit for your purpose Taking notes: Situations where you need to record information for you and/or others (e.g., minute taking) Making notes: Situations where you are making notes to actively engage in something (e.g., emphasising key information/ideas; highlighting actions or follow-ups; restating ideas in different ways) Beware of task-switch costs Doing more than one thing at once is generally not possible in non-automated tasks, and when we switch rapidly between tasks our performance declines dramatically (e.g., Creamer, 1963; Musslick & Cohen, 2021) Look out for good and bad advice As with all academic and transferable skills, you will be your own best guide to selecting the best approach There are lots of people out there giving advice – much of it is poorly thought out Good advice? How you take notes may not be as important as comprehending the lecture You might find note-taking a useful way to focus your attention and prevent your mind from drifting But you have the opportunity now to experiment. Maybe even try not taking notes (after all, everything is recorded, and you could write notes afterwards, or when revising). But is it really?? Worrying about how you take notes could also be a big distraction. The importance of note-taking – what’s the evidence? Limited evidence Jansen et al., (2017) Lots of contradictory studies Note taking is sometimes beneficial, but sometimes has adverse consequences on retention Depending on lots of factors like the modality of the lecture (in person or video), and the speed and complexity of lecture delivery Note-taking engages a range of cognitive processes which take up your cognitive resources Preparing for assessments Marking criteria Before the lecture, you were required to review marking criteria for essays and the quantitative report. You were asked to consider; Which academic skills are the marking criteria set up to assess? How will these be useful in later employment? Get into pairs and discuss the above. Essay marking criteria Quantitative report marking criteria Types of assessments How do we assess at university? 1. All submissions logged 15 (mid-module) or 20 (end- of-module) working days 2. Module lead organises marking loads 3. Marking team calibrate; marking scrutiny panel reviews feedback 4. Marking 5. Module lead reviews marks, writes report 6. Quality advisor moderates sample 7. Administrators log marks 8. Marks and feedback returned to students Learning from feedback  “Feedback is important to us to understand what our strengths are and what our weaknesses are." Different types of feedback Formative Provides indicators on your performance and helps to identify areas for improvement Received before you submit the assessment Summative Is evaluative and measures your performance against the module learning outcomes Is usually accompanied by a mark or grade and is used to determine degree classification Feedback used as feed-forward Helps identify what you need to do to improve in future assessments What can effective feedback do? Raise your consciousness of the strengths of your work Boost your confidence and self-concept regarding your personal strengths and abilities Provide guidance on areas for further development of skills and enhancement of work Enhance your own judgment, understanding of assessment criteria, and ability to self-audit your own work Features underpinning student feedback literacy Appreciate feedback Make judgments Manage affect (e.g., recognise that it comes in (e.g., participating productively (e.g., avoid defensiveness when different forms and from in peer feedback processes) receiving critical feedback) different sources) Take action (e.g., draw inferences from a range of feedback experiences for the purpose of continuous improvement) (Carless & Boud, 2018) What will my feedback look like? Action plan for using feedback “How can my tutor’s comments help me to improve my work?” 1. Check you understand why the tutor wrote each comment. Highlight comments that could be useful for other assignments 2. Create a table with major issues and minor issues as the column titles 3. List the comments from 1. under the different columns 4. Compare the list to previous work 5. Number the items in order of priority Using feedback – A short guide About Feedback - Using feedback: A short guide - LibGuides at University of Birmingham ASC using feedback resources ASC using feedback resources Any questions?