 Okay, so thank you everybody. As I said, we're the Y1 Feedback Project and the team is here today. I'm Lisa O'Regan from New Zealand University. We've born afar from DCU, Mark Brown from DCU, and Laura McGuire from DKIT, and Apologies to Neela Harding from AIT. She's sick today, but she was planned to be here. Okay, so the project, where did we start? Okay, so what we wanted to do was directly respond to the concern around feedback and first year. So successive ITZY reports showed that students in first year quite often are said, almost 70% of students only sometimes are never received feedback in first year. So that's why we went for this project. So as a group, we came together, so it's a multi-institutional collaboration, and it's a two-year project. So we started out in January 2015, and we've got about another semester of implementation to go when we'll be finishing up at the end of January. So what do we want to do? So obviously we wanted to respond to the concern, but in practical terms we want to enhance feedback practice in undergraduate programs. Okay, and how we wanted to do that was by identifying approaches that would work for first year. Okay, but also to develop case studies of those then, case studies of best practice, and to share those out nationally. Okay, so how have we been doing is what everyone wants to know. Okay, before we go any further, this is the full team, just so that not everyone could be here today. Okay, so our first job, what did we set out to do? Well, our first job was to see what's going on. We wanted to see what was actually happening with feedback in first year across our institutions. So we looked at current practice of staff, and we looked at the current experience of students across the four institutions. Okay, so the study has been published, and there are some copies here. I wish I could have carried enough for everyone in the audience, but unfortunately I'm not that strong. So we have a small few, but you can get them online. Okay, so what did the study find? Well, first and foremost, it found that the experience of first years is inconsistent, matching the national, I suppose, findings. Okay, so you can see here, it really varies. The repeated phrase we found was, depends on the lecturer. Okay, so work to be done. From a staff perspective, key challenges included large groups. Okay, but also it was around the students, our staff felt that students were only interested in the grade, not the feedback, and that there were challenges around student engagement with feedback. Okay, so first job done, and our publication is here. Okay, next job. Okay, so we had seen what was happening. We wanted to look at the literature, see what was the literature saying, what was going on elsewhere, and we completed that study and we have published our synthesis of the literature. So what does this document look at? It looks at contemporary perspectives on feedback. It looks at feedback at first year. Particularly we looked at transitions literature and what we could learn from that in terms of feedback approaches. Then we also set out to look at features of effective feedback from the other projects such as REAP, and then identifying what feedback approaches work for first year. And then we looked at technology. How can technology help in these? So these are the key areas that the literature looks at and I'd encourage you to go look at it and you can find it on our website. Okay, so just to say that both of these documents have both these reports have been downloaded quite regularly on our website. We asked about 300 downloads each, okay? And we have got some really good feedback on the documents and for example, David Carlos, leading writer on feedback, has complimented our work on this area. So we were really chuffed about that, as you can imagine. Okay, so our next job we had said we would look at identifying a kind of a conceptual framework for feedback or something we could work from. What that evolved into was we have identified from both studies a set of features of effective feedback for first year, okay? And these are the guiding features for our case studies and for our work on the second phase of work. So I'm not going to read through them. You can see them, but I will comment on a few of them. Okay, so first and foremost, we're looking at feedback beyond just feedback within assessment, okay? And that was an evolution within our project also. Crucially, we're looking at ways to support students' transition. So the embedding of student assessment feedback literacies, students don't always recognize feedback or know what to do with it. So it's important to build it into whatever approach you're doing. The fostering of student competence and belonging, again key to student transition and retention. A cornerstone of our project is around dialogic feedback, okay? Between teachers and peers, between peers, but also about who begins the dialogue, okay? Changing that up. It doesn't always have to be the teacher who begins that dialogue. Crucially as well, it's about not just feedback, but feed forward. Many of our case studies are looking at embedded feedback, flipping feedback, that is. Instead, are in a way trying to combat the effects of modularization, looking at ways which you can embed feedback through the module, ongoing ways, or even through the assessment. So a key way of doing that is multi-stage assignment. We are looking at how we can leverage the potential of digital technologies, and therefore we see the embedding of digital literacy skills within any approach as very important. The next one is really about, I suppose it's the holy grail of feedback. It's about adopting a coordinated and programmatic approach to feedback, okay? Easier said than done. No one seems to have cracked it yet, but certainly it is what we are aiming for. And these features together, we would hope would support students in becoming self-regulated learning, okay? And in helping them to make judgments about their own work. So these are, I suppose, features or high-level principles which are guiding us. But what practical things can you do to make this happen? So we also identified a number of feedback approaches for first year, and these are found in our synthesis of the literature. And these are the types of approaches that support those features, but which we are also developing case studies of. Just to say that in many cases, the case studies blend these approaches. Together. I won't go through them. Just to say that while some of them may seem or may be things that you are well familiar with, from our study we found that many of them were not used highly. For example, very low use of exemplars, Rubik's and Marking Guide's in first year was what we found within our study. The use of technology generally was very low, okay, in feedback. High instances of people getting their students to submit via technology, but that's where the technology ended, okay? So we're trying to find ways where it could be used more. Okay, so they were our first, our phase one outputs, and we have our, I suppose, objectives, and we have achieved those. Phase two was all about taking this and putting it into practice, okay? So what we have done is that through various ways, such as information sessions, staff development activities, we have began working with academic partners across the four institutes, okay? On different areas. Each case study works with a dedicated project for liaison where they get support in each of the aspects of the case studies they're working on. And just to say that the team takes the holistic approach in looking at both the assessment and feedback. It's not just looking at the feedback area. So, we set out to deliver 16 case studies. At the moment, we have about 27. We have 14 case studies that are completed on implementation and 14 reports in development are at stage one. And we have 13 cases, our case studies, which are actually in implementation this semester. Okay, and so we will be finishing up those. They will have evaluation stages done by December, and write-up will be in January. So, in total, we have 36 academic partners across 18 disciplines with class sizes ranging from 10 to 70, or 750. So, as you can see, we've got a wide range of subjects and class sizes. Okay, so, I'm not going to go through these. Okay, so that's the wrong way. But this is a sense of the type of case studies we are developing. So, you can see from here, there is a wide range of approaches. For example, flipping feedback, multi-stage assignments. You've got screen casting, rubrics, you've got real-time feedback. You heard about Unidoodle today. We're actually working with them on a case study as well. And you can see as well, we've got a wide range of disciplines. Social care, politics, first-years, the library, and also online programs as well. A real mix, so hopefully there'll be something for everyone to learn from. Okay, so, you can look more at those later. But, down to, I suppose, the impact and where we hope to go. I suppose, at the stage we're at, we have another semester to go, and we are looking about how we hope we will have impact. We have some impact already, but we would see that growing in the next stages, and certainly even more in the year after our project and things move out further. I suppose the key thing about our project or what we wanted to do was to raise awareness both with individuals and institutions around the importance of feedback, timely feedback, quality feedback, but also about contemporary perspectives of feedback, and different ways of looking at it. Not just one way, but two way, and that the student is an active partner in that. I suppose another key impact that we wanted to have was compared to the scholarship of teaching learning and feedback, and I think we have done that, and there is evidence of that impact already. I suppose, crucially, the project wants to make an impact around the capacity around feedback and technology enhanced feedback, even in the numbers of our case studies, we can see that there is impact in our local institutions already, and that will go further when the case study reports are shared more widely. I suppose, at a basic level, there are some things with feedback, and I suppose it's kind of like what the last speaker was saying, in terms of seeing that someone else tried it and it didn't blow up is a deed encouragement to us all. I suppose overall for the team, ourselves, it was about building our expertise in the area, and I think certainly we would all agree that we have over the course of the project. Impact so far. So, we do have a Twitter account and we have about 171 followers. Please follow us if you have not followed us already. In terms of our website, we've got about 5,000 users and about 9,233 views so far. We would see that the role of the website will, I suppose, grow as we move closer to our symposium and towards the end of the project and afterwards the case studies are shared in it. So at the moment, the majority of our case studies or all our case studies will be posted in time for our symposium. Just to say in terms of dissemination we've worked at local levels I suppose trying to raise awareness of the project and feedback at various committee levels such as faculty, TNL committee and quality and we've made presentations there. I suppose within our own TNL units we have tried to integrate feedback with in our existing TNL programs. For example, one initiative was called Feedback Fridays where there was a series of 12 workshops dedicated to different aspects of feedback and technology and able to feedback. What we've also tried to do is based on the literature studies we've done and the landscape study we've done is to embed those within the existing accredited programs so adding lectures and workshops on feedback and contemporary perspectives on feedback within those. We've also contributed to other workshop series such as what works and why with the workshops in each of the other institutions. More widely than say a local level we have tried to disseminate nationally so you can see here a number of conferences that we have presented at and notably CEDA we noted during the summer and this wasn't just a presentation but also a workshop where we got feedback on our features and approaches from other educational developers in the area which was really, really valuable. The team recently we just got a paper so we'll also be presenting there. I suppose further our evidence of our impact is we have begun to be invited to we've been asked to go other places to give presentations around feedback which is nice so we gave a seminar in Eden over the summer again this was a workshop where we got feedback as well from the educational developers in Ireland on our work to date which was very useful as well. We presented the DCU teaching and learning day. We've been and upcoming the IAT assessment day and also we'll be presenting at the University of Bath assessment and feedback day in February. All of these people saw us these are presented at ed tech haven't seen our reports or saw the CEDA so evidence of impact there. I suppose more widely in Australia a similar project has just been funded. They're also looking at feedback case studies it's called feedback for learning closing the assessment loop. Michael Henderson and Monash is leading that. We have begun a collaboration there they're actually reusing some of our questions from our landscape study and I'm a member on their reference group for the project and we'll be meeting them in November also to see where we can build that collaboration and also contributing to the national forum assessment project and our big dissemination though is going to be this enhancing feedback and first year are why I want feedback symposium so you heard it here first Friday the 27th of January please put it in your diaries and take this as a personal invitation okay but don't see people after calendars please okay I meant it I should see a big upsurge and following so 27th of January I hope you'll be there because you'll find out loads more about our case studies so that is us just to say a lot of work has been done on that already we do have some confirmed speakers so just to I'm going to tell you everything but we do have Tansy Jessup who will be coming and we have David Nickel and there is more and most importantly our case study participants will be presenting on the day so you'll get to see the people who will be doing loads of work on the ground and they're going to be sharing their real experience with you so it will be it will be good it better be now or I'll be in trouble this is being recorded isn't it okay impact okay this is I suppose a more difficult way at this point to say but we do see evidence of impact at a different level for our stakeholders in terms of staff we can certainly see in terms of knowledge and skills and their confidence level in trying new feedback approaches and I suppose I really do want to stress it's about the feedback approaches rather than the technologies the technologies really have become secondary to this project and in a way it has become more of an it is an educational development project rather than a new learning project and that has been I suppose somewhat of a change from the original I suppose Key we have had people last semester who tried things who are writing up case studies who are teaching again next semester in the same module and are going to redo or keep using those approaches so it is having an impact in terms of the student experience we would hope that we will have impact here there is evidence to date within the case studies that have been completed students are very positive about the experience in some cases where there was only some assessment students are now getting feedback on an ongoing basis so this is a change I suppose they are also experiencing a greater variety of feedback audio, video, online these are all changes I suppose and we will be working on and get the most out of feedback initiative this semester where we are promoting how to get feedback where to get feedback and how to use your feedback project team I suppose for us I think we would all say we are all a bit look over them we are all a little bit wiser than we were to start I would say that personally that I know a lot more about feedback feed forward now I suppose we certainly we have built our expertise here and I suppose in the wider aspect of things just in terms of institutional collaboration I have learned so much about how DCU works IOT works it is so different in ways I wish we noted at the start we would have made some change not many changes but also just in terms of national project expertise it has been a great opportunity for all of us and we really appreciate it I suppose in terms of practice and systems in terms of the impact our aim from the start was to use what we have better we have made consistent effort not to be me particularly lured by these new tools that might be very expensive and to try and use better what we have and we are really trying to use our VLEs and the free tools that we have to do what we want to do we are also working to integrate what we have learned to make recommendations into other aspects of TNL such as programmatic reviews and we will be making wider project recommendations at the end to our institutions okay sustainability this is a really hard one to crack so what we all we can do is hope I suppose in one way and work hard to ensure we have sustainability it was at a conference it was someone speaking from the test of project and they were saying we just got noted as being one of the most sustainable projects ever funded and they were like we have no idea why so with a project like that that can say that it's just to say this is a hard one to crack but we are working hard to do our best in this area I suppose the key one for us is around we are focusing on the features of effective feedback and on the approaches and not the technologies because this is sustainable technologies will come and go however the approaches that work will last okay and that we're really pushing that and that's why we spend more time than we anticipated on the literature study and on the other study so putting our efforts in there I suppose the other thing is that with everything we do we are really trying to focus on quality outputs and the way we work with academic partners and the support and energies we put into that we're really trying to ensure that each case study you know gets the support it requires and will be a good case study for the sector to look at overall all our outputs at the end and the additional resources that we will create from those will be available on our website and will be under Creative Commons and I suppose for ourselves in terms of sustainability we're already talking about what we'll do next particularly in the areas of student engagement of feedback and programmatic assessment okay so where to come with this one perhaps maybe six a year down the line after the project we'll be able to maybe share more concrete things on this one so finally thank you so much for listening I appreciate that so many of you stayed considering it's been a long day and to leave you with this please save the date please come it will be a good day and you will find out so much more about the project okay