Formative Feedback in Art School: Understanding Experiences, Perceptions, and the Role of Shared Assessment Literacy
Nutter, Digger and Wills, Maisie (2025) Formative Feedback in Art School: Understanding Experiences, Perceptions, and the Role of Shared Assessment Literacy. In: GSA Learning and Teaching Conference 2025 Diverse Learner Journeys: Supporting Students to Succeed, 10-06-2025 and 11-05-2025, in person and online.
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Creators/Authors: | Nutter, Digger and Wills, Maisie | ||||||
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Abstract: | This poster was presented at the GSA Learning and Teaching Conference on 10 June 2025. It shares early insights from a student–staff partnership project aimed at developing shared assessment literacy and improving the experience of formative feedback within art and design education. Formative feedback is embedded into the everyday rhythms of art school life — through tutorials, crits, and informal conversations — yet students often struggle to recognise or act on it. Drawing on work by Pitt and Winstone (2023) and insights gathered by student consultant Maisie Wills, the poster explores how feedback is offered, perceived, and valued differently across student and staff perspectives. Themes include the emotional and relational labour of feedback, mismatched expectations, and the often invisible nature of formative dialogue. The poster prompts reflection on whose responsibility feedback is, how feedback literacy might be better embedded into curriculum, and what it means to support students in navigating complex feedback ecologies. Designed to provoke conversation, the work contributes to institutional efforts to build a more inclusive, dialogic, and student-informed culture of assessment. | ||||||
Output Type: | Conference or Workshop Item (Poster) | ||||||
Additional Information: | Research Question The central enquiry driving this project is: How can shared assessment literacy between students and staff improve the experience, recognition, and impact of formative feedback in art school contexts? The work responds to challenges frequently raised in student feedback: that formative assessment is difficult to identify, feels disconnected from project outcomes, or lacks clarity around meaning and purpose. Methods The poster synthesises early findings from a partnership project undertaken at the Glasgow School of Art. A student consultant was appointed to explore student and staff perceptions of feedback and assessment through a coproduced project using interviews, literature review, and collaborative reflection. A series of thematic provocations emerged from these conversations, visualised in the poster through call-and-response dialogue fragments. These reflect common disconnects, such as the difference between how feedback is intended versus how it is received and structural and emotional complexities in assessment. The format prioritises student voice, shared language, and staff prompts to support inclusive reflection and practice change. The themes are grounded in literature on feedback literacies (Pitt & Winstone, 2023), compassionate assessment (Salines et al., 2022), and situated critique (Orr & Bloxham, 2013). Context of Contribution Presented at GSA’s Learning and Teaching Conference on 10 June 2025, this poster formed part of the strand Empowering Staff to Support Student Success in Partnership with Students. It acted as a touchpoint for discussions about feedback across departments and framed future activities in the wider feedback literacy project, including resource development and staff workshops. As a visual artefact, the poster continues supporting dialogue by making visible the often unspoken or ambiguous feedback practices within creative education. | ||||||
Uncontrolled Keywords: | Feedback Literacy, Student Voice, Partnership, Formative Assessment, Art and Design Education | ||||||
Schools and Departments: | Learning & Teaching | ||||||
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Status: | Unpublished | ||||||
Event Title: | GSA Learning and Teaching Conference 2025 Diverse Learner Journeys: Supporting Students to Succeed | ||||||
Event Location: | in person and online | ||||||
Event Dates: | 10-06-2025 and 11-05-2025 | ||||||
Output ID: | 10333 | ||||||
Deposited By: | Digger Nutter | ||||||
Deposited On: | 23 Jun 2025 14:31 | ||||||
Last Modified: | 23 Jun 2025 14:31 |