Introduction
This module will focus on the provision of feedback to students, in particular feedback that is accessible, and supports or enhances learning and development.
This module is aligned to dimension AF1 of the EAT Framework, ‘Provide Accessible Feedback’.
This section will focus on ensuring the accessibility of feedback by focusing the student on what was good, what let them down, and how to improve.
It will discuss concepts of how the feedback is received by students, and to what extent does it promote forward-thinking approaches of the student, so that they can develop self-regulated learning strategies.
A key point we will consider is that students need to have done the necessary preparation in order to be able to use feedback provided to them. Engaging with feedback as a dialogic process, where the feedback provider and the feedback recipient both have roles to play in the process, is a fundamental concept underpinning this module. 
Note: Students need to have completed any necessary work in order to be able to use feedback.
Key messages
* how good is the feedback we give;
* how accessible to learners accepting that they see things in different ways; have different priorities etc.
• To what extent is feedback provided used by the students?
• How do we create the context where students can be receptive to feedback?
What is Accessible Feedback?
Considerable work has been undertaken to understand the nature and impact of feedback. However, for feedback to be effective, both students and educators need to agree about the pedagogic purposes of it (van Heerden, et al., 2017). Fundamentally, the goals of the feedback provider and the feedback recipient need to be aligned (Archer, 2010).
The primary purpose of feedback is to provide the student with guidance on how to build on their current work in order to improve.
Feedback therefore needs to have certain key elements, it needs to be:
• forward-looking, focusing on what the student needs to do next, more than what they have done previously.
Reference to the work they have submitted needs to be couched in terms of how to enhance, improve, or change their current actions/skills/understandings. Feedback is providing a routemap for how to improve. Feed forward needs to be fundamental basis of feedback guidance.
• internalised by the student, so that they can apply it to their own understandings of their own abilities, and use the feedback to change their actions. If feedback does not lead to a change in the student’s behaviour or approaches, then it has failed as an activity.
• used to encourage reflection by the student on what the student did well, what can be improved, and how. Reflection on feedback has to include this active component of determining what to do differently in future.
Activity: Review the diagram which summarises some of the key elements of accessible feedback.
Click image to enlarge
The point that feedback needs to be internalised by the student is key. In order for students to be able to able to use the feedback, the feedback itself needs to be accessible. That is the essence of this as a dimension of EAT.