Interview with Joana Jacob Ramalho, Lecturer (Teaching), SELCS, UCL.

CHE: Hi Joana, a BIG congratulations on being awarded a Student Choice Award for Exceptional Feedback at the annual UCL Education Awards. Feedback is an area of education that is receiving increasing attention from our students – they expect feedback to be detailed and timely, and they rightly expect feedback will help them improve their academic performance. So, naturally, we would love to learn more about how you do it. But first, tell us about what you teach and how you would describe yourself as an educator.

Joana Jacob Ramalho (SELCS)

Joana: I teach Gothic Literature, Spanish Film, Musical Satire, Intermedial Comparison, Lusophone culture and Portuguese language. As an educator, my goal is to guide students to reach their potential, which sounds cliché (I know!), but in fact requires training, experience, patience and, above all, creativity. It means constantly tailoring your modules and materials to your students’ different learning styles, combining inclusive techniques that cater for diversity. I want my students to be curious and remain curious throughout their studies (if not their lives!). I feel it is my duty to empower them to ask questions and be comfortable when addressing their concerns. I teach them about culture, politics, history, the arts, and work with topics that are relevant to them – even when they do not immediately realise why. I help them gain transferable skills they might need for further study and future employment, but they also help me make me a better educator. The students are not empty vessels, waiting to receive knowledge; learning is a dialogue, a conversation.

CHE: What methods or strategies do you use for providing feedback?

Joana: I use a combination of numerical, qualitative (written and oral), and peer feedback to teach mostly small to medium groups (~22 students). Whenever possible, feedback should strive to offer students the possibility to develop their ideas or reorient them, suggesting either complementary or alternative avenues. To accomplish this, some form of qualitative feedback should always accompany a numerical mark, whether that means written feedback or a brief chat where the student can ask questions. On the advice of a colleague from ARENA, I have recently introduced peer feedback into my teaching and the students have welcomed it enthusiastically. In language modules, the students experience, in pairs, what it is like to mark and grade a composition or translation. In content modules, there is a peer-to-peer discussion (with minor input from the tutor) in the seminar half of each lecture.

My department encourages formative feedback and I find it essential to guide students in their learning, while giving us a chance to check in with them and adapt our pedagogical strategies (PhD supervision, for instance, is all about formative feedback). A mix of in-class and at-home tasks has worked best for my students. Moodle offers a wide range of activities, from fora to quizzes and interactive videos, that have become familiar tools in my modules. The type of formative tasks varies, but overall these consist in exam-type assignments for language modules and essay plans, sequence analyses, close readings and annotated tables of contents for film and literature modules.

As for summative assessment, I tend to overdo it on the feedback front… I want students to benefit from the same high-quality guidance I enjoyed when I was a student at UCL and I write… a lot, often managing to mark only one essay a day. This is of course not ideal or ultimately sustainable if I want to still have time to do research! In the last couple of years, I have therefore developed templates for each of my modules that allow me to continue offering comprehensive feedback without spending so much time on marking.

Another way to implement change is to develop a staff-student partnership. I led a ChangeMakers project on feedback and assessment in 2020-21, which resulted in a new set of marking criteria designed with a group of first and second-year undergraduates. The project team emphasised how this initiative made them feel like they were actively contributing to the restructuring of the curriculum.

Whichever strategies or methods I use, timeliness is a core aspect of giving feedback. I want my students to be able to read through the comments and have time to act on them. In the first week of term, I explain when and what type of feedback the students can expect. As an example, my film and comparative literature students know they will have the opportunity to submit an essay plan. I set the submission deadline towards the end of term, to give students the chance to write about any of the texts mentioned in the essay questions. An earlier deadline would mean excluding some of those texts or having the students prepare a plan on a topic or text we have not yet explored, which would be counterproductive. Importantly, I make it a point of always handing back the plans before the end of term, so that students can come to me with any questions. This means marking dozens of plans for different modules in the space of a week, but it is one of the aspects the students feel most grateful about. Returning feedback in a timely fashion is key.

CHE: Why do you think students respond so well to your way of providing feedback?

Joana: The students tell me they understand what they have done well and how to improve. They stress the fact that I use in-text comments along with a detailed overall commentary especially helpful. I cover a little bit of everything in the in-text comments, from formatting issues and written expression to reasoning, validity of arguments and structure. I created a series of labels on turnitin for this purpose, which I can reuse and add further comments to. Positive feedback is important as well, so I have lots of labels ranging from ‘good’ to ‘great’ and ‘praise’.

In addition, I provide examples of how to address the issues I flag. For instance, instead of simply pointing out that students should ‘expand’ or ‘engage with the quotation’, I offer a precise suggestion on how to do that. My goal is not only to help students get a higher grade, but help them to think. When I advise them to add more nuance or avoid rushing from one argument to the next without properly supporting their point, my hope is that this exercise encourages them to reflect and use their critical judgement as they engage with the world around them, questioning that which might appear a given, and refrain from jumping to conclusions without checking the facts.

CHE: Where and how did you learn to provide effective feedback?

Joana: With my parents and at UCL. My parents are both teachers and much loved by their students. They unfailingly go above and beyond their duties, staying longer after class and using different approaches to feedback that cater to a diverse range of students. I’ve got a lot of tips from them over the years.

During my Master’s in Film Studies at UCL, the feedback I received was extraordinary. By that I mean, it was detailed and build me up. I remember receiving my first assignment (a formative 500-word sequence analysis) and all I could see was red. Almost every sentence was underlined and accompanied by a single word scribbled on the margins: expand, detail, rephrase, restructure, good, source?, etc. It was a turning point for me as a student and (little did I know at the time) as an educator. The initial shock quickly subsided, as I realised I now knew exactly how to improve. I still keep that piece of paper!

Another aspect my students comment on is my availability to chat with them and provide additional feedback in a more informal setting (outside the classroom). That is also something I learned as a UCL student. My lecturers, the Film Studies programme director, the Head of the Spanish & Latin American Studies department and, in particular, my Master’s and PhD supervisors always seemed to have time for me. Their generosity was central to shape my pedagogy.

Giving good feedback has been a learning curve. Trying to figure out what works for which students on which platforms is a process of trial and error. In my 15 years working at UCL, the sustained sharing of teaching practices within SELCS-CMII has been crucial: the impromptu brainstorming sessions in the corridors of Foster Court, feedback workshops, second marking, doctoral co-supervision, and programme and Language Coordination meetings have introduced me to innovative methods and creative strategies to produce effective feedback.

CHE: Has your idea of what effective feedback is changed over the course of your career?

Joana: The idea itself has not changed, but the methods and strategies have certainly evolved! My feedback has become more comprehensive and more targeted. In my year-long language modules, I can tailor my comments to each individual student’s needs, which is a privilege of small-group teaching. As for content modules, I have learned to focus on specific areas, depending on whether I am marking undergraduate or postgraduate work.

CHE: What are your top 3 tips for effective feedback?

Joana: Detail – Relevance – Timeliness

Thank you so much for sharing your experiences and expertise with us, Joana.