How we provide exceptional student feedback

Not only are our class sizes smaller, allowing you more one-on-one engagement with tutors and more opportunities for tutors to assess and give feedback on your work, but it’s also our methods of feedback and assessment that are critical to the improvement and success of your course work. Futureworks teaching methods are underpinned by our deep-seated industry knowledge and experience. Over time, we have refined and adapted how we provide student assessment and feedback so that it’s delivered like you’d receive it in a professional working environment. It prepares you for work and offers more benefits to help you improve than traditional academic methods.

Earlier this year, our students rated Futureworks 90% for assessment and feedback in the annual National Student Survey. We asked the Heads of our Schools why they thought we were ranked highly and what methods they employ to provide students with constructive and insightful feedback.

Rob Magoolagan, Head of Futureworks’ School of Sound & Music Production

“There are a couple of examples to illustrate how we provide feedback, especially in the third year when it’s critical for students who are developing their final honours project.

Firstly, we run a year 3 weekly clinic for each of our Sound and Music production programmes. It’s a hub where students can get valuable and quite extensive one-to-one feedback from their tutors on their individual projects. The clinic lasts the full day, there’s normally a lecture at the start to gather everyone together and following that students have individual time with their tutors and importantly time with each other to discuss their work and benefit from peer feedback and support. In third-year students are given the freedom to negotiate and work toward individual goals and the clinic is a great way to keep everyone together to sustain the sense of community and group identity. From our point of view, it allows us to monitor a student’s progress to ensure they’re on track, support them in their work and build those student-tutor relationships that last way beyond the course.

The second example is how we approach assessment for our Mastering module. Mastering is the process of finishing or finalising music ready for release. It’s the last process before it’s approved, uploaded to music streaming platforms and launched into the public domain. The Mastering Engineer’s expertise is valued at the highest levels in the industry and yet often a bit of a mystery to those still learning their craft. By placing the student in the role of Mastering Engineer throughout the module we can accelerate their learning and demystify the process. In light of this, it made sense to us to simulate a real Mastering session for the assessment with detailed feedback delivered in the room. The student presents their collection of mastered tracks in the Mastering Studio to two assessors acting as the client. They play the work, walk us through the data, explain the process and justify their technical and creative choices – just like a Mastering Engineer would do in a real client-attended session.

Immediately following the presentation, we provide verbal feedback directly to the student, discussing strengths and areas for improvement in the work. We record it and upload the file to their student portal so they have a record of it straight away. Mastering is one of their first assessments in third-year and pre-empts delivery of most of their major production work. Having immediate access to this level of feedback has a positive impact on the finishing stages of their other projects.

It’s an authentic approach that mirrors industry and highly beneficial for improving a student’s work. They get to discuss the project with us face-to-face, and they receive a recording of our assessment. Ten minutes of detailed commentary would represent thousands of words in a written report, much more than you’d expect from a higher education provider.”

Richard Hellawell, Head of Futureworks’ School of Film, Television & Media

“When we talk with our external examiners, they are astounded by how much time we take to mark students’ work. For example, if I’ve got a fifty-minute documentary to review, I’ll watch the fifty-minute documentary and then record and talk over the documentary. I’ll provide detailed feedback throughout the work, including what was and wasn’t good, how it could have been done better, what worked, what didn’t, etc. That’s a minimum of two to three hours for one piece of work, but we do it because it needs to be done. When our students dedicate themselves to creating their work, they deserve decent and respectful feedback.

I’ll do the same for scripts. A ninety-minute script will take ninety minutes to read, then re-read, and provide feedback, but if someone’s taken the time to write a ninety-minute script, they should receive a solid and constructive assessment that’s respectful of their efforts.

I can’t speak for other higher education providers, but if you have a larger cohort of students, you’re not going to be able to provide as detailed feedback as we do because we ensure we have smaller class sizes to allow us to dedicate more time to each student.

Throughout the year, we hold Professional Practice, and they are compulsory attendance for all students and an essential component of the grading criteria. Professional Practice comprises a minimum of five periods in the year where students gain direct, one-to-one individual feedback on their ongoing work in progress outside of lectures and other classes, and they are not only graded on their work but also their approach to each assessment. For example, if a student just turns up, talks about their work, and tells us where they are, then that’s OK, average. The difference lies in presentation; say for argument, their work is marked at 65, and their approach to Professional Practice, if done well, could take that mark up to 68. It’s the students who take it seriously and present their work, talk in depth about it, seek advice, ask questions, and discuss; these are the ones who understand the importance of these sessions. Professional Practice is also our way of monitoring a student’s progress through their course. For example, a student who’s performed excellently throughout the year. They’re making a documentary, and at the last minute, the subject of their documentary pulls out. They can’t continue filming or complete the project. It’s not the student’s fault, but the result is damaged because of something out of their control. Still, we have documented their progress throughout the year during Professional Practice so we can grade them on their journey rather than the final result.

It’s called Professional Practice for a reason: it’s precisely what would happen within the industry. You’d present to a board of directors, or backers for a film or TV project, a movie director, etc. and provide them with a detailed update on progress, and in this situation, if you don’t deliver the goods, it’s serious, you’d be sacked. We’re instilling professional practices into students from day one, so it becomes ingrained in their attitude toward work, and that’s rewarded in the grades they receive.”

Ken Lau, Head of Futureworks’ School of Art & Design

“I can speak for all of us at Futureworks that, regardless of the School, we’re all outstanding when it comes to getting to know our students and their work.

So, around ten years ago, it came as quite a surprise when we were scored low for feedback. We discovered that our art & design students didn’t realise that sitting down with them, talking about their work, asking questions and giving them advice was actually feedback. They presumed that feedback was a piece of paper with written comments and a predicted score, etc.; it was a case of shifting perceptions. That was quite a few years ago, but it illustrates how important it is to understand a student’s point of view.

There are many ways that we give feedback to students; as mentioned, there’s the apparent method of working around the class and sitting alongside students as they work, asking questions, discussing their techniques, etc. Then there’s providing feedback to submitted work. One of our Tutors, for example, has set up a Discord Server, and he feeds back to students on an open channel, performing drawovers and describing how they can improve their work, and that’s shared with everyone on the Server. It allows students to see their peers’ work and benefit from the feedback. It’s also what often occurs in a hybrid studio environment in industry as it helps guide a remote-working team and not just the individual artist.

We also provide video feedback on students’ work; for example in a 3D modelling exercise of a prop, we can record feedback and pull in pictures of the prop itself, zoom into detail, compare the model with the photographs, comment on the accuracy of the interpretation and point out where the student has succeeded and where more work is needed. When we do this, we’ll have two tutors discussing the project on video, holding a conversation about the work, and providing opinions, and that’s a real benefit for the student. It makes the video more engaging, and students see this as a constructive and positive discussion and highly valuable to their improvement; plus, they can rewind, replay and pause the video, and refer back to it in the future to gauge how much they have advanced their skillset.

In the Game Art and Digital Animation with Illustration courses, we’ve introduced Stand-Ups. If you work in an industry development team, Stand-Ups are very common in animation and game studios and are all part of the development process. It’s about ensuring that a project your team is working on is growing in the right direction. The entire team is aware of each other’s progress, so either organised or impromptu Stand-Ups are encouraged, where team members will stand up at their desks and present their work, seeking constructive criticism from their peers and also keeping each other updated when certain milestones in development have been achieved. We’re mimicking the industry and preparing students for working in a studio environment by helping to build their confidence in academia so they can stand up in front of their colleagues in a working environment. Our students must learn to accept critique, become receptive to it and use it to their advantage rather than take it to heart.

Now, all that said, we do have students who find Stand-Ups very challenging, but given the size of our classes, we can individually tailor them to the needs of these students. We can modify our approach to meet their needs and instead provide more one-to-one approaches, gradually helping them deal with their anxieties first and building their confidence; after all, they may be an exceptional artist but struggle to communicate their work, so we need to help them with that.”

There you have it, our three Heads of School voicing their varied approaches to providing assessment and feedback to their students. As you’ve probably noticed, the theme that connects all three schools is their desire to mimic industry best practices. So, if you’re seeking a degree that will provide you with the skills, knowledge and expertise for a creative career, starting your higher education with Futureworks will give you the vocational training and industry-driven insights to help you succeed.

Book an open day and discover why we’re the UK’s leading higher education provider for specialist degrees tailored to a creative career.

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