Elizabeth Bailey

As a Lecturer in Education and a Digital Lead at the University of Lincoln, Dr Elizabeth Bailey is responsible for planning digital innovations in the university’s School of Education. The School of Education offers undergraduate, postgraduate and research study, with courses designed to provide a foundation for future study or work in the field of education.

Originally, the department used a word processing software to provide assignment feedback to its students. However, in wanting to make sure that all of its students received a consistent feedback experience and quality of marking, lecturers have recently adopted Turnitin’s full suite of Feedback Studio features, with the creation of module-specific QuickMarks.

“[Using Feedback Studio] means that students are getting a much more consistent experience in terms of marking which was one of the concerns we had with how we were doing it before."

With the help of Feedback Studio, Elizabeth and her colleagues, Dr Anita Backhouse and Dr Rachael Sharpe, undertook a project aimed at increasing PGCE students’ engagement with feedback using a 'screen-capture approach'. Lecturers then repurposed their use of Turnitin QuickMarks by turning them into video prompts used to provide an audio commentary of students’ marked assignment in a personalised video.

Using screen-capture software, lecturers record themselves moving through Feedback Studio and an assignment’s rubric. Students, who train off campus four days a week, must then engage with the whole video to receive their feedback and can access this regardless of their location or confidence to ask for meetings with staff.

“[Students] could really see how their feedback was tailored to them. We were referring to them by name. You had a chance—if you were giving quite a critical comment—to soften it with your tone of voice and with additional words that you just don't have the space to do when you're writing out a comment.”

To Elizabeth’s delight, the screen-capture approach is instrumental in providing balanced feedback. The flexibility of verbal feedback supports understanding, making the feedback more meaningful. Students’ reactions to this new method suggest that feedback is more memorable, personal, easier to absorb and less formal.