ABSTRACT VIEW
360-DEGREE FEEDBACK IN WRITING CLASSROOM
APPLYING A HOLISTIC MODEL FOR EVALUATING STUDENTS’ WRITING ASSIGNMENTS, FROM A QUALITATIVE DESCRIPTION TO A QUANTITATIVE RATE
M. Farshid Nik
Graduate Division of Educational Research, University of Calgary (CANADA)
A 360-degree feedback is an expression which we face in human resource, but since this method is a comprehensive evaluation which leads in improvement of whole system, I found that it is possible to expand it to assessment process of my writing class, during six-years teaching experience.

In this 'multi-source assessment', the student improvement feedback comes from all around the student. The feedback would come from team members, classmates, and teacher, as well as self-assessment, and in some cases external sources such as students’ parents. It may be contrasted with traditional assessment approach, where students are given feedback just by their teachers.

In this model feedbacks come from several raters, includes own students, and finally lead to positive changes in students' satisfaction and engagement, and increase their acceptance of results and practices required.

The results from 360-degree feedback are often used by the students receiving the feedback to know their strengths and weaknesses and plan their development. The results are also used by teacher for not only grading decisions, but also knowing the critical performance aspects and designing a more efficient coaching and training initiatives.

The main resource for a 360-degree feedback in writing classroom is a list of writing criteria which should comprise three basic features: designed through students ‘engagement, being illustrative, and describes deferent level of fulfillment. In the next step a self-evaluation checklist, a teamwork checklist and a coach checklist will be developed based on this authentic list.

The process of applying this model, both designing the worksheets and steps of procedure, will be elaborated in this article. In addition, reviewing experiments and outcomes of a six-year period as well as rendering adequate details, makes this model applicable enough for any educator in her/his own writing classroom.