ABSTRACT
An important, and often under-utilized, part of the teaching and learning cycle is feedback, from lecturers and tutors to students on assessment, and from students to lecturers as evaluation of their teaching. This chapter argues that feedback and evaluation, although linked to the assessment of specialized knowledge and practices, is often given or designed in generic ways. This undermines further specialized development of knowledge and knowers, and it limits the ability of both students and lecturers to engage in critical, forward-looking reflection and change. Generic feedback to students in particular, can exclude students, who do not successfully show their ability to realize the ‘rules of the game’ in their assessments, from improving their learning and becoming more successful knowers. Evaluation, as a form of feedback to lecturers from their students, can also reinforce generic and individualized notions of what it is to be a successful teacher. Using the concepts of specialization codes and semantic waves from Legitimation Code Theory, this chapter shows you how to consider offering students feedback that is connected to the discipline’s organizing principles, and feeds forward to future writing and learning. In terms of evaluation, it looks at how to ask for feedback on your teaching that enables you to reflect both on the teaching context and on your own ongoing development as a specialized teacher in your discipline or field.
