Importance of personalised, formative and summative assessment feedback for independent study units

Many university students generally find independent study units to be challenging as this is deemed rather unusual to the more structured instructions of assessments they are used to. For many, this is an enormous task and for varying reasons, including all or some of the following: (1) many are in a quite different academic environment where they are no longer simply told what to do but must learn analysis and creativity, (2) they have had to learn that plagiarism is a really important issue and it is not just about the high similarity score but also about originality of ideas, (3) many have found they can cope with content based courses while taking on substantial part time work that at times overlap with classes and preparation time, and (4) such units offer limited or no face to face lectures and tutorials unlike the other standard units. In most independent or partially independent study units, students often need to commit and engage wholeheartedly and apply their research, academic writing skills and innovation which is hard to fathom for those who are used to a more directive format of learning and teaching. Many of the students do not recognise the importance of using Moodle resources and hence miss the nuances of the assessment task especially where, like most independent study units, it departs from what they have become used to. Consequently, a significant number of students find themselves to be unsuccessful in their final semester when they face the capstone unit, often designed as an independent or partially independent study unit, with serious implications on their career plan and and mental health. Based on my gradual success as an unit coordinator in 2018 and 2019, I will demonstrate how a personalised, formative and summative assessment feedback can help combat many of these issues and improve the learning experience and success rate in such independent study units without compromising the standards of assessments or the learning outcomes.