The Assessment and Feedback Workshop Series Team (Team Leader:Wayne Ramwell) (School of Social Sciences)

The Assessment and Feedback Workshop Series Team: Wayne Ramwell, Petra Larsem and Benjamin Springett

The team delivers Assessment and Feedback Workshop Series across the Law Department for all students aiming to identify and mitigate any skills gaps early on through extra-curricular sessions. These workshops focused on how to successfully answer essay questions and problem questions, including sessions on critical thinking and analysis and how to make the most of feedback. In terms of reach, these workshops were also made available to second and third-year law students and modified to encompass all three years working together on practical tasks for hands on learning.

Throughout the series the team sought to meet precise requests from students via post-it notes at the start and surveys at the end. Through this feedback workshops were made more interactive and dedicated to critical thinking and analysis via: (i) engaging in dialogue between ourselves and students during the theoretical part of the session as a form of staff-student partnership; (ii) challenging students during small group work; and (iii) through letting students peer mark each other. Each session included about 25-80 students, with a broad reach across the years.

Students in the 2023-2024 academic year responded positively and commented “...great structure and interactive...useful revision techniques for 24-hour exams...helpful understanding of effective time management and avoiding procrastination...significantly helped with essay writing...”.