A Session on Effectively Using Feedback

The Expereincing Sociology Programme ran its third session for first years on Thursday of Week 18 which on the topic of feedback.

Our Sociology majors and combined majors have just received feedback on their first major sociology essay, so we decided to dedicate this session to dealing with, sharing, and learning from feedback.

Jonny Beacham started thes session with some reflection on dealing with feedback – how it can be tempting to not confront feedback head on, or to just treat feedback as an explanation of the mark the piece received rather than as a tool for thinking about how to improve. Jonny gave some great advice which was to treat feedback for what it is, a response to a text, and not a comment on the authors’ abilities in general.

Then Dale Munday, Digital Learning Facilitator in the university, introduced a new initiative and platform for students in Sociology, and a pilot initiative for the university, the Experiencing Sociology Digital Feedback Portfolio. The portfolio, hosted on Microsoft OneNote gives our students a platform to store, access, easily view, and share with their tutors, all of the feedback that they have received throughout their degree. Dale explained to our students that learning from feedback depends on being able to identify patterns and trends in work produced and to be able to highlight common areas for improvement across modules, subjects, and topics.

The sessions was based in the computer labs. Students downloaded their feedback, added it to the portfolio, and then, in what was a first for many, shared their feedback with their peers to draw out what they thought were the most significant strengths and weaknesses of that particular piece of work.

Joanne Wood, the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences’ Learning Development Tutor then helped to collect common issues and talked to students about where in the department, faculty and the university they could go to get further support to develop their work in particular areas.

We finished off the session with another social – this time with a catch-up and a coffee in County Bar!

The next ESP session will be Thursday of Week 23, where we will run the employability session – ‘What can you do with a Sociology degree anyway?’ and follow it with a pizza social!

A Seasonal Skills Session and Christmas Party

The Experiencing Sociology Programme held its second first-year event on Tuesday of Week 8, and bringing the festive feeling in nice and early; we followed the session up with a winter social and Christmas holiday quiz!

This time our first years focussed on study skills, reflecting on changes to their study practices since starting at Lancaster just eight short weeks ago.

The title of the session was ‘Reading Fast, Reading Slow, and Making Better Notes’. One of our recent graduates, Mike Greenhough, now doing a Masters in Sociological Research in the department, kicked off the conversation by talking to us about how his study practices had changed throughout his undergraduate degree. He told us about how he had continually developed how he took notes, and he introduced students to the programme that he had been using to do this online, Microsoft OneNote.

Following this discussion, Stan made a case for learning to read fast! He described some of the times it can be useful to be able to read a lot of material very quickly. Then Jonny Beacham responded, arguing that it is also important to know when to read slow, taking your time, especially with certain kinds of texts, reading over material more than once, and giving yourself time to let the authors’ ideas ‘settle’.

We finished this session with a Festive Winter Party and a Sociologically inspired holiday quiz! We had mulled wine, mince pies, hot chocolate, cakes, and we found out what Marx’ favourite Christmas story was!

The next ESP session for first years is in Week 13, and the title is: ‘What Can I Do with a Degree in Sociology Anyway?’. In this session, we will look at the profiles of recent Sociology graduates who have gone into a range of different kinds of work and take a look at some of the activities they got involved in while at Lancaster to build up their experience and CVs. The session will be led by Kat Price-Edwards from the careers service and followed by a pizza social where there will be a chance to talk to Kat, to Bron (the department’s employability tutor), and to some of our student ambassadors about opportunities and activities to get involved in as well as developing your plans for the future!