Learn from feedback

What is it?

Peer feedback is a process in which your classmates or team members provide constructive comments, suggestions, and evaluations in a collaborative educational setting.

What does it look like?

Peer feedback can be facilitated through structured activities such as peer reviews, tutorial group discussions, presentations, or collaborative projects. This feedback relates to various aspects, including work performance, content understanding, clarity of expression, presentation skills, team work, and adherence to marking rubrics.

How do you use it?

A key function of peer feedback is to encourage you to learn to reflect on your own work, analyse both your strengths and areas for improvement, and become actively engaged in the feedback process.

What is it?

Collaboration with peers and educators is a major part of learning at university. Your tutorials or workshops are a great space to engage in group discussions. These tutorial discussions can provide personalised feedback or overall feedback to the entire class.

What does it look like?

This feedback may relate to your progress, address common misconceptions, highlight areas for improvement, and offer guidance for future assignments or assessments.

How do you use it?

Actively participate with your peers and educators in the discussion during the tutorials. Be prepared with questions in relation to your required readings and assessment task details. These discussions are a great opportunity for you to ask questions about content, assessments, and applications of theories. This is also a great place to listen to others’ questions and your educators' responses to these questions.

What is it?

Forum discussions are available on Moodle for most units, providing an essential platform for students to seek clarification on unit content and assessments. If, for instance, you find yourself uncertain about the required number of references for an upcoming task, you can simply post your query on the forum. Your educator will promptly address your question within the forum.

It is worth noting that you can also browse through the forum posts of fellow students to see if someone has already asked a similar question, saving you time in receiving an answer. Additionally, this allows you to discover valuable information that you might not have thought to enquire about.

What does it look like?

All units have an announcements forum, where your educators will make announcements, sometimes addressing common points of feedback for all students.  Some units also have additional forums where you can post questions. These may include dedicated forum discussions for assessment-related questions.

How do you use it?

In Moodle forum discussions, actively engage in exchanging ideas, perspectives, and knowledge, and learn from the discussions. This enables you to enhance your critical thinking and communication skills and gain diverse insights into your subject matter. To you, it may not sound like feedback, but in essence, by interacting with the forum posts you are actively getting feedback on the content and assessments and enhancing your learning.

What is it?

Educators communicate with you and give you feedback in different ways, which might not always be through your rubrics, marking guides, and scores. Your marking criteria and scores can be accompanied by your educators’ further comments in written and/or verbal form.

What does it look like?

Educators may engage with you via lectures, during tutorials through group work, or by answering Moodle forum questions, and responding to emails.
Sometimes, written comments could be provided on your draft assignments, or in-class work, that highlight strengths, offer constructive criticism, and provide suggestions for improvement before assignment submission. Verbal feedback may be offered during lectures, tutorials, lab work, or one-on-one discussions. This feedback can include specific comments on your contributions, answers to students’ questions, or explanations of concepts, questions, or explanations of concepts.

How do you use it?

This is the type of feedback you use consciously most often. To make this feedback more effective, you can keep up to date with weekly unit contents and ask questions during lectures, tutorials, and Moodle forums.

What is it?

Weekly quizzes are a form of continuous and automated assessment in which you are regularly tested on the relevant unit materials of that week. Sometimes these quizzes can have an allocated mark, which, by the end of the semester, will contribute to your overall grade in the unit. Other times these quizzes can function as practice questions, without being marked. Whether they are marked or unmarked, they are important forms of feedback as these quizzes offer opportunities for regular and consistent feedback across a teaching period.

What does it look like?

The weekly quizzes are usually timed, and the question types, chosen by your educators, may vary, including multiple-choice, true/false, short answer, essay, and more.

How do you use it?

These quizzes function to provide immediate feedback and can guide your learning across a teaching period. This feedback allows you to determine what you understand of the topics, identify areas that require further attention, and seek additional support if needed.

For example, on a quiz, you might get 5 out of 10. A good question to ask here is, “What does this score tell me?" It is more than a score that you got. It tells you that you have a good understanding of the concepts of the five questions you got right. It also tells you that you have five remaining questions or concepts that need your close attention to practise and improve.

What is it?

Some unit Moodle pages feature a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) section. These may be situated under either the 'Unit Information' or in the ‘Learning’ section where the assessment is located, or they may be attached to the assessment activity as a downloadable file. In FAQs you can find the most commonly posed questions from students from previous semesters, along with their respective answers.

What does it look like?

Typically, questions are listed in a clear and organised manner, followed by concise answers to each question. Links may be provided for more detailed information or related resources.

How do you use it?

Use this as a point of reference for any likely questions. Check the FAQ if you have any questions regarding your assessments or unit information. It serves as an extremely useful resource for resolving any issues you may encounter during your studies.

Chances are, it is where your current queries have already been asked by previous students, making it highly likely that you will find solutions here. Moreover, these questions and answers might identify important matters you might not yet have considered.

In case your question is not listed in the FAQ, consider asking your question on the Moodle forum and during class.

What is it?

Consultation sessions organised by your faculty or unit are dedicated opportunities for you to meet with your educators for one-on-one discussions.

What does it look like?

These optional sessions can be held throughout a teaching period, or at specific times, such as mid-semester or at the end of the semester. They can occur via Zoom or in person. The details will be shared by the educators.

How do you use it?

You can use these sessions to seek clarification, receive personalised feedback, address concerns, and gain deeper insights into your assignment tasks, course material, or academic progress.

What is it?

Examples and exemplars can be students’ submitted assignments that can represent a broader concept or idea as an example of the assessment task. Some units might provide examples on Moodle for you to have a broader understanding of how you can approach the assessment task. Exemplars or model answers may be provided, in some cases, by your educators.

What does it look like?

The examples and exemplars focus on the form which will mimic actual student assessments. These demonstrate the expected standards and expectations of the assessments.

You can also access a range of assessment examples on LearnHQ.

How do you use it?

Study and analyse these examples as reference points to check primarily the following aspects:

1. The overall structure and presentation
2. How the different themes are presented
3. The use of language and references.

What is it?

As a student at Monash University, you can see a learning adviser for one-on-one consultations for 25 minutes every week. Feedback from learning advisers provides you with personalised guidance and expertise to support your academic success.

What does it look like?

During a one-on-one conversation with an adviser, you can get feedback on a range of academic skills, such as time management, academic writing, understanding assessments, and improving your academic English. Based on your needs, you will be provided with strategies and follow-up tasks for the next session.

How do you use it?

This feedback can help you identify areas for improvement, set meaningful goals, and develop strategies to maximise your learning potential. Actively consider and implement the feedback to gain a deeper understanding of your unit materials, improve study techniques, and enhance your academic performance. In a follow-up session with the adviser, you can also check your progress and discuss how you can overcome any other challenges that you might have faced.