How to Utilise Feedback and Improve on Grades

Hi everyone,

Many of you will have recently received some of your first university assignments and grades. Hopefully you are happy with the grades you received, but often this new workload can be overwhelming, and you can feel unhappy with the results. Either way there is always a chance to improve and learn from our marks. So, I thought I would share some of my tips and what I do after receiving grades and feedback.

First of all, make sure to read any feedback that you get or read through the assessment criteria to see why you have received the grade you got. You could always contact your lectures or tutors if you didn’t get any feedback and would like some. Once I have read it I go back through and write down the points I could improve on and then next to it how I will actually improve on this going forward.

The best way to actually make improvements is by creating SMART goals. This just means making the goals/the how you are going to improve specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time based. For example, if I had run out of time on a project I may write as my feedforward to do one extra hour of work a day before I go to my 10am lecture. Another example may be if I need to do more primary research at the start of each month, I will find relevant exhibitions to visit and go to one every fortnight. Of course, keep your goals relevant to the feedback you get, but just by adding the measurable aspect means you are more likely to achieve them and improve.

I also take time to do a self-reflection on how I think the assignment went, where I think I can improve, did I manage my time well etc. This is especially useful if you don’t receive written feedback, you can basically create your own list of improvements. And don’t forget to reflect on where you did well so you can continue doing what led to those aspects being successful.

Overall, there is definitely a lot to learn from assignments and grades. Try not to be too disheartened and instead use it to improve and move forward. I have previously made other posts about dealing with deadlines and revision tips, so I will leave a link to those here:
How to Prepare for Exam/Deadline Season - The Student Room
Revision Techniques That Helped Me - The Student Room

I hope this was helpful and good luck for this term!!

-Grace (Kingston Rep)