Reflective Approach to Feedback and Feed Forward for Success in Higher Education

This report discusses the reflective approach towards learning, feedback and feed forward for success in higher education. It includes the Gibbs model of reflection, the nature of feedback and feed forward, and how they help in improving future formative and summative assessments. The report also provides relevant references for further reading.

Orientation for success in
higher education

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Describing the reflective approach towards learning by using the Gibbs model of reflection....3
Describing the nature of feed forward and feedback by using the model...................................4
Explaining how a reflective approach to feedback and feed forward helps in improving future
formative and summative assessment..........................................................................................6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................1

INTRODUCTION
Reflective learning refers to the allowance of recalling the past lived experience and
making better the future experience by evaluating all the learnings and taking precautionary
measures. It also enhances the critical thinking process which helps in taking future decisions
accurately and wisely (Colomer and et.al., 2018). Typically, reflective learnings are the overall
evaluation of the experiences for the purpose of enabling the human beings to judge the possible
negative and positive outcomes of the steps that they plan to take in the future. It is the concept
of hidden and private thinking which includes numerous elements of which, here are some such
as, describing, analysing, interpreting, evaluating and the future application (Mezirow, 2018).
This report will provide, the applicable reflection model, statement on the reflective approach
towards feed forward and feedback and lastly, the report will also evaluate how they will
improve and inform the summative and formative assessments.
MAIN BODY
Describing the reflective approach towards learning by using the Gibbs model of reflection
Reflective learnings involve the retrospection of the past idea or experience and then after
critically examining the event. It is a reflective approach that helps the one to indulge in deep
thinking and enhance the personal capabilities and knowledge. By going through the
unsuccessful and successful experiences, reflection helps the individual to analyse the good and
bad and enable the person accordingly to take the steps. Below is the best suitable model of
reflection.
GIBBS' REFLECTIVE MODEL
This model is a framework for determining the experiences which allow an individual to
learn and plan on things further. It involves 6 stages which encompass different questions that in
providing perfect guidance.
1. Description- This stage involves the entire procedure of describing the situation in
particular. Description concerns of what all has happened. It includes further questions
such as, where and when the event took place? What was done by the learner and the
other people? Who else was present during the situation?why was the individual present
there, at the time of event? And what were the outcomes of the event?
2. Feelings- Feelings are engaged with the thoughts which an individual hold during the
period of experience and how those feelings impacted the individual's experience (Wang,

and et.al., 2018). The proper explanation of feelings require answers to the questions such
as what were the thoughts of the learner both after and before the situation? What in the
learner's perspective were the thoughts of other people who were present during the
event? And What do the learner and the present people in the event, think about the
event currently?
3. Evaluation- The following involves calculating the entire experience and determining
what were the things that worked and what were the things that didn't work during the
event. Evaluation requires the learner to be honest in order to avail the best reflection
focus which consider both negative and positive features of the event. The evaluation is
done by stating the facts and answering the questions such as what were the things that
went well? What was the bad and good about the event? What were the contributions
made by the people and the learner both? And what were the things that didn't go good?
4. Analysis- Analysis is associated with the extraction of meanings from the experience.
This step involves making sense out of the happenings. Right analysis can be done by
answering the questions such as what is the sense which the learner has derived from the
event? and what kind of knowledge of the other people or the learner can help in
understanding the situation better?
5. Conclusions- This stage involves summarizing the whole event and deriving the best
solutions for the actions which could improvize the outcomes of that situation in the near
future (Fink, 2021). The Best conclusion can be determined by answering the following
questions such as what are the lessons learnt from the event? Determination of how the
event could have been a positive event? What kind of skills are required to handle such
kind of events in the future and what else the learner could have done?
6. Actions plan- This involves different actions that the learner will adapt this time to deal
with the similar situation in the near future, if it takes place. This involves answering the
questions like how to acquire the desired skills for the task? And how the learner can
ensure that the actions taken are different this time?
Describing the nature of feed forward and feedback by using the model
Feedback refers to the remarks an individual is given on the personal performance and
feed forward refers to the solutions which are to be applied in the future in response to the

negative and positive feedbacks given for a task done (Dutta and et.al., 2018). Here is the
following model which state the nature of the feed forward and feedback.
GIBBS' MODEL
Description- This particular step involves the description of an event that took place earlier and
what was the learner's experience. Here, during the last year of my 2nd year exams of business
administration, my score was 89.3 and I couldn't make it to 90s (Al-Jubouri and Al-Jubouri,
2019). This made my economics teacher give me a feedback of how I wasn't presenting my
answers well in the papers and this could be the one reason which made me stand behind from
the others in the class.
Feelings- Feelings are associated with the learner's personal feelings during the time of the past
event. Here in this case, I was always scoring 1st and 2nd in the class and due to some reasons, I
couldn't make it this time which started making me feel guilty (Colomer and et.al., 2020). The
entire experience I faced, made me doubt myself and slowly with time, I started to demean
myself. The fact that others were winning over in the classes and the guilt of just left behind
by .7 was making me think gain and again of how a little more effort by me would make me
count amongst the others.
Evaluation- This very stage involves determining the things which worked well and which
didn't in the past situation faced by the learner. Here, the feedback which I got form my
economics teacher, made me realize I wasn't performing well in my presentations and this is the
main reason I wasn't able to make it to 90s. The answers were all right and were providing
proper solutions, but the presentation was the one thing where I was lacking.
Analysis- Analysis are engaged with extracting something meaningful from the past event
(Lapina, 2018). Here, while determining all the negative and positive factors, I took the advice of
my accountancy teacher who provided me a feed forward of how I should start working on my
presentation skills by giving regular test series of an online website, in order to achieve the
desired results and the beat the toppers record.
Conclusion- Conclusion refers to putting of the entire event in little words and identifying the
best solutions for it (Ptakauskaite, Cox and Berthouze, 2018). Here, from the situation I
concluded that the major mistake done by me was the way of presentation which I chose to
present my answers. Also, with the help of my economics and accountancy teachers I came
across the area where I was lacking and now, how I will have to work in order to get back into

the race (Frøshaug and Andreasson, 2020). The feed back and feed forward provided by the
mentors guided my way through the entire problem.
Action plan- Action plan is engaged with changing and improvising the way of dealing with the
similar situation in the future. From the experience I had in the situation, there are various things
which taught me how to perform better and never lose hope. Here, my plan is completely derived
form the feed forwards and feedbacks I got from my teachers. I will make sure to draw more and
more flowcharts for the easy explanation of answers and continue to give my test series a
through the regular tests, I will be aware of the pattern of doing the papers.
Explaining how a reflective approach to feedback and feed forward helps in improving future
formative and summative assessment.
The feedbacks are the honest information provided to learners regarding their
performance (Wisniewski, Zierer and Hattie, 2020). This is referred to identifying and evaluating
their progress while learning. Effective feedbacks by the students help them in constructing new
approach and stimulate their actions towards the learning. This also helps to the feed forward
which provides them information regarding how to do better by analysing their performance. The
both terms feedback and feed forward helps students to ensure the developmental learning and
improving their future assessment as the feedbacks focus on the current performance of the
learner, the feed forward provides a guidance to the subsequent assessment.
 Feedback process improve learning of the students which helps them in getting more
marks in the formative and summative assessment (van der Kleij, 2019). The feedbacks
can be formal and the informal which provide specific advice to the students about their
performance. This advice is useful for the learners that enables them to know what they
are lacking in and in what ways they can improve their performance.
 The good feedbacks help in improving morale of the learners which in turn increases
their motivation to study further. Motivation is the key to get success in any kind of the
work (Weng, C. and et.al.,2021). This motivation will help students also in their studies.
Feed forward deals with the same concept that meaning is to apply the feedbacks in their
performance.
 Feedbacks are always centred around the meaningful conversation between two sides.
These conversations increase the communication process (Dawson and et.al., 2019). The

communication process is very important for the students as this helps students in
questioning and asking from the teachers. The good communication always improves
studies of the learners.
 The feed forward enhances and builds the constructive skill and the behaviour for the
achievements of the goals. It is centred around the changes and successful achievements
of the goals and provides the guidance to how to do better (Sadler, Reimann and Sambell,
2022).
These were some benefits that enhances the person's ability to improve performance of the
learners in the formative and summative assessment. This benefits both the students and the
teachers.
CONCLUSION
The conclusion derived from the above report states that, reflective learning is the
learning which is derived from the experiences of an individual from the past events, in order to
make the individual to take the personal future decisions and steps wisely by calculating the
previous results. Here, the report comprise GIBBS' model which helped in defining the nature of
the feedbacks and feed forwards. Also later, the report suggests the use of feedback back and
feed forward in order to improve the summative and formative assessments.

REFERENCES
Books and journals
Al-Jubouri, A.H.H. and Al-Jubouri, M.H.M., 2019. The Effectiveness of Teaching in the Gibbs
Model in the Decision-Making to Solve the Environmental Problems among Students of
College of Education. SCOPUS IJPHRD CITATION SCORE. 10(01). p.732.
Colomer, J. and et.al., 2018. Evaluating knowledge and assessment-centered reflective-based
learning approaches. Sustainability. 10(9). p.3122.
Colomer, J. and et.al., 2020. Reflective learning in higher education: Active methodologies for
transformative practices. Sustainability. 12(9). p.3827.
Dawson, P. and et.al., 2019. What makes for effective feedback: staff and student perspectives.
Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education. 44(1). pp.25-36.
Dutta, S. and et.al., 2018. Learning and verification of feedback control systems using
feedforward neural networks. IFAC-PapersOnLine. 51(16). pp.151-156.
Fink, T., 2021. Conclusion, Reflection and Outlook. In Drivers of User Engagement in
Influencer Branding (pp. 149-193). Springer Gabler, Wiesbaden.
Frøshaug, A.S. and Andreasson, U., 2020. Conclusion and reflection.
Lapina, A., 2018. Facilitating coping through reflective learning in adult education: A review of
the reciprocal relationship between coping and learning. Adult Learning. 29(4). pp.131-
140.
Mezirow, J., 2018. Transformative learning theory. In Contemporary theories of learning (pp.
114-128). Routledge.
Ptakauskaite, N., Cox, A.L. and Berthouze, N., 2018, April. Knowing what you're doing or
knowing what to do: how stress management apps support reflection and behaviour
change. In Extended Abstracts of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in
Computing Systems (pp. 1-6).
Sadler, I., Reimann, N. and Sambell, K., 2022. Feedforward practices: a systematic review of the
literature. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education. pp.1-16.
van der Kleij, F.M., 2019. Comparison of teacher and student perceptions of formative
assessment feedback practices and association with individual student characteristics.
Teaching and Teacher Education. 85. pp.175-189.
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Wang, M. and et.al., 2018. Reflective learning with complex problems in a visualization-based
learning environment with expert support. Computers in Human Behavior. 87. pp.406-
415.
Weng, C. and et.al.,2021. Reflective learning as an important key to the success of an online
course. Behaviour & Information Technology. pp.1-17.
Wisniewski, B., Zierer, K. and Hattie, J., 2020. The power of feedback revisited: A meta-
analysis of educational feedback research. Frontiers in Psychology. 10. p.3087.
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