Phoebe Yu, Lecturer
School of Modern Languages
Humanities and Social Sciences
What did you do?
Used Grademark to give timely feedback on a translation exercise
Who is involved?
Phoebe Yu, Lecturer in Translation, students on the MA in Translation and Interpreting
How do you do it?
Every year staff on the MA Translation and Interpreting organise a mock conference where students interpreting skills can be testing in a realistic professional environment. Students are assessed on their interpreting skills in a live setting and tutor give them a formative grade and advice on areas on their practice which could be improved ahead of their end of year summative assessment.
They can use this feedback to improve their performance in their end of year assessments. Using Grademark meant that tutors could type feedback directly into the programme, using common words of phrases based around their experience of previous years to generate very quick and detailed feedback. This could be sent to students within hours of their performance at the conference and help them to prepare for their final examinations.
Why do you do it?
It became a significant administrative burden for staff to provide feedback in a timely manner, as they had to take notes during the students’ individual performances and then type them up for feedback purposes. As many staff had up to 30 students to assess, this often meant that not all students received their feedback in time to improve before the final assessments. Obviously this caused some anxiety among the students, who often made mistakes in the final examinations which could have been rectified with more timely feedback from this initial exercise.
Does it work?
Both students and staff find the new system much easier. Using Grademark reduces anxiety in students who can work through feedback and work on weaker areas of their interpreting skills in time for their final assessments. Staff find that they can give much better feedback, based on a more immediate response to the student’s performance and using stock words and phrases to give a more detailed account of strengths and weaknesses. They system also reduces staff’s administrative burden as responses can be saved and released the same day and do not require long periods spent writing up notes.
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