Transcript Feedback for Student Growth

Feedback for Student Growth
JULY, 2010
Learning Targets
 I can use specific, meaningful feedback with students
so that they can understand where they are in their
learning and what they need to do next.
 I can construct and communicate feedback with
special attention to timing, amount, mode and
audience.
 I can choose effective feedback with special attention
to focus, comparison, function, valence, clarity,
specificity and tone.
What Is Specific Feedback?
 Sometimes is helps to define a concept by thinking
about what it is not. Specific Feedback in not
praise. It can include praise, but goes beyond the
familiar “Excellent! Good job!” or “Wrong.”
 Specific Feedback is one of nine instructional
strategies that work to increase student
achievement (Marzano, Pickering, & Pollock, 2001)
and provide students with specific information as
to how well they are performing.
Why Use Specific Feedback?
 Specific Feedback has a powerful impact on learning
and achievement and is important to help learners
assess the degree to which they have accomplished
goals (Marzano, Pickering, &Pollock, 2001).
 Feedback can be provided by the teacher, peers and
the learner.
Research Findings
 When feedback is corrective in nature—that is, it explains
where and why students have made errors--significant
increases in student learning occur (Lysakowski & Walberg,
1981, 1982; Walberg, 1999; Tennenbaum & Goldring, 1989).
 Feedback has been shown to be one of the most significant
activities a teacher can engage in to improve student
achievement (Hattie, 1992).
 Asking students to continue working on a task until it is
completed and accurate (until the standard is met) enhances
student achievement (Marzano, Pickering, & Pollock, 2001).
Research Findings Continued
 Effective feedback is timely. Delay in providing students feedback
diminishes its value for learning (Banger-Drowns, Kulik, Kulik, &
Morgan, 1991).
 Administer tests to optimize learning. Giving tests a day after a
learning experience is better than testing immediately after a
learning experience (Bangert-Downs, Kulik, Kulik, & Morgan, 1991).
 Rubrics provide students with helpful criteria for success, making
desired learning outcomes clearer to them. Criterion-referenced
feedback provides the right kind of guidance for improving student
understanding (Crooks, 1988; Wilburn & Felps, 1983).
 Effective learning results from students providing their own
feedback, monitoring their work against established criteria
(Trammel, Schloss, & Alper, 1994; Wiggins, 1993).
Think/Pair/Share
 What is the role of feedback in classroom formative
assessment?
 What is the role that feedback currently plays in your
own classroom?
Feedback Strategies
Feedback Strategies Can
Vary In…
In These Ways…
Recommendations for Good
Feedback
Timing
•When Given
•How Often
•Providing immediate feedback for
knowledge or facts (right/wrong)
•Delay feedback slightly for more
comprehensive reviews of student
thinking and processing.
Amount
•How many points made
•How much about each point
•Prioritize-pick the most important
points
•Choose points that relate to major
learning goals
•Consider the student’s
developmental level.
Mode
•Oral
•Written
•Visual/Demonstration
•Select the best mode for the
message
•Interactive feedback is best when
possible.
•Give written feedback on written
work or on assignment cover
sheets.
•Use demonstration if “how to do
something” is an issue or if the
student needs an example.
Audience
•Individual
•Group/Class
•Individual feedback says, “The
teacher values my learning.”
•Group/class feedback works if
most of the class missed the same
concept and reteaching is needed.
Let’s Look at Some
Examples!
Think/Pair/Share
 Discuss the timing of feedback in your class(es).
How often, and how promptly do you return
assignments with feedback?
 Give some examples in your classroom where oral,
written, and demonstration feedback are
appropriate. Describe the feedback you gave and
what effect it had on student learning.
Feedback Content
Feedback Content
Can Vary In…
In These Ways…
Recommendations for Good Feedback
Focus
•On the work itself
•On the process the student
used to do the work
•On the student personality
•When possible, describe the work and the processand their relationship
•Avoid personal comments
Comparison
•To criteria for good work
(criterion-referenced)
•To other students (normreferenced)
•To student’s own past
performance (self-referenced)
•Use criterion-referenced feedback for giving
information about the work itself.
•Use norm-referenced feedback for giving
information about student processes or effort.
•Use self-referenced feedback for unsuccessful
learners who need to see the progress they are
making, not how far they are from the goal.
Function
•Description
•Evaluation/judgement
•Describe
•Don’t judge
Valence
•Positive
•Negative
•Use positive comments that describe what is well
done
•Accompany negative descriptions of the work with
positive suggestions for improvement
Clarity
•Clear to the student
•Unclear
•Use vocabulary and concepts the student
understands
•Tailor the amount and content of feedback to the
student’s developmental level
Specificity
•Nitpicky
•Just right
•Overly General
•Tailor the specificity to the student and task
•Specific enough so that students know what to do,
but not so much that it is done for them.
•Identify errors or types of errors, but not every one
which leaves the students nothing to do.
Feedback Content
Can Vary In…
Tone
In These Ways…
•Implications
•What will the student “hear”
Recommendations for Good Feedback
•Choose words that communicate respect for the
students and the work.
•Choose words that position the student as the
agent
•Choose words that cause students to think or
wonder
Let’s Look at Some
Examples!
Think/Pair/Share
 Discuss some ways that you are “positive” without
being insincere or untruthful when you give feedback
to students.
 How do students respond to feedback in your classes
both in their learning and in their motivation? What
conclusions can you draw about your classroom
environment and the effectiveness of your feedback?
The “Pause-Prompt-Praise” Approach
 Try “Pause, Prompt and Praise” as a structure for
feedback. It provides an example for specific and
corrective feedback. When a student or group of
students appears to be struggling with a challenging
task, take the following steps:
PAUSE
 Pause- Ask the student to stop working on that task.
Briefly discuss why the student is struggling with the
task. It might sound like this:
 Henry, stop what you are doing and let’s reflect. What
is it about the task that you know you understand? Now
tell me what it is about the task that is confusing.
 By asking both questions, the teacher is encouraging
reflective thinking and gaining a better understanding of
the metacognitive process of the student.
PROMPT
 Prompt- Provide a specific suggestion for improving the students
performance:
 You are right on the mark when you told me you were trying to
remember what to do when you could not understand hard
reading material. You said you did not remember all the things to
do, so let me remind you of one of the tools you can use. Look on
our Community Learning Wall. Do you see the section titled
“Trouble With Text”? There are seven suggestions. I am going to
ask you to use one of them for now. Look at the one that says
“Asking Questions”.
 Review this comprehension strategy with the student, then model
using a “Think-Aloud” with the student’s reading assignment. Ask
the student to do this, and to write the questions on sticky notes.
Let him or her try it before you leave.
PRAISE
 Praise- Praise the student for his or her effort if the performance
improves as a result of using the suggestion. This might sound like:
 Your question is a good one. Also, in order for you to understand
this material, you have to know the answer to your question. Keep
reading for the answer, and also see if you can come up with at
least four more questions. I look forward to seeing what your
other questions are going to be because the first one was so
thought-provoking. I can tell you are thinking!
 Leave the student to work independently, and continue to monitor
the class. Circulate around the entire class, then stop by the
student’s desk to see that he or she is on the right track.
How Do You Know If Your Feedback Is Good?
 Your students do learn – their work does improve.
 Your students become more motivated – they believe
they can learn, they want to learn and they take more
control over their own learning.
 Your classroom becomes a place where feedback ,
including constructive criticism, is valued and
viewed as productive.
Let’s Practice
What We’ve
Learned!
See “Evaluating Feedback”
Handout
Sample Evaluation
Feedback Sample: “Each paragraph should have one
main idea, and that idea goes in a topic sentence.”
Evaluation Sample:
Focus: Task
Comparison: Criterion-referenced
Function: Descriptive
Valence: Positive
Comments: This is an example of good feedback if the
student needs this information about what paragraphs
should contain.
Time to Soul
Search!
See “Feedback Checklist”
Think/Pair/Share
 Describe your classroom in terms of feedback. What
are your strengths? What are your weaknesses?
What “Ah Ha’s” have you had today?
 What are your top three priorities in relation to
feedback for this upcoming school year?
Implementation
Fine-tune how you provide feedback by focusing on
the details of what you say, as well as when you say
it. Research suggests best practices for providing
feedback:
 Increase the value of tests and homework. Providing
only a grade or number on a test or homework
assignment leaves out critical information for
students. Take time to write comments, point out
omissions, and explain your thinking when
reviewing student work.
Implementation (cont.)
 Make feedback count. Feedback is best when it is
corrective in nature. Help students see their errors
and learn how to correct them by providing explicit
and informative feedback when returning student
work. Make feedback another part of the learning
process.
 Don't delay feedback. The longer students have to
wait for feedback, the weaker the connection to their
effort becomes, and the less likely they are to benefit.
Implementation (cont.)
 Help students get it right. If students know you want
to see them succeed, and you're willing to help
explain how, their learning improves. Give students
opportunities to improve, try again, and get it right.
 Ask students to provide feedback. Students can
monitor and provide feedback to other students, as
well as compare their work to criteria. Engage
students in review of their own work and others.
Implementation (cont.)
 Give students time to absorb new ideas. Tests are
more effective as opportunities for learning if a day
has gone by between learning experiences and the
test.
 Use rubrics. Rubrics provide criteria against which
students can compare their learning. Involve
students in developing rubrics. Rubrics help students
focus their effort.
Strategies to Help Students
Learn to Use Feedback
 Model giving and using feedback yourself
 Teach students self and peer assessment skills to:
 Teach students where feedback comes from.
 Increase students’ interest in feedback because it is “theirs”
 Answer students’ own questions.
Strategies to Help Students
Learn to Use Feedback (cont.)
 Be clear about the learning target and the criteria for
good work.





Use assignments with obvious value and interest
Explain to the student why an assignment is given-what the
work is for.
Make directions clear
Use clear rubrics
Have students develop their own rubrics or translate yours
into “kid-friendly” language.
Strategies to Help Students Learn to Use
Feedback (cont.)
 Design lessons in which students use feedback on
previous work to produce better work



Provide opportunities to redo assignments
Give new but similar assignments for the same learning targets
Give opportunities for the students to make the connection
between the feedback they received and the improvement in
their work!
Reviewing a Test
 Tests are usually full of information that does not get
used. An analysis of test results can be a gold mine
of information, but only if students know that they
will get a chance to use the information and that it
isn’t too late to profit from feedback.
 Teach students to distinguish between wrong
answers that don’t indicate a learning problem
(typos and careless mistakes) and wrong answers
that do.
Summing It Up…
Effective Feedback…
 Describes features of work or performance
 Relates directly to the learning targets and/or
standards for quality
 Points out strengths and gives specific information
on how to improve
 Occurs during the learning process-while there is
still time to act on it
 Limits correctives to the amount of advice the
student can act on at one time.
A Final Thought….
Feedback says to a student, "Somebody
cared enough about my work to read it
and think about it!" Most teachers want to
be that "somebody." Feedback matches
specific descriptions and suggestions with
a particular student's work. It is just-intime, just-for-me information delivered
when and where it can do the most good.
Resources
 Brookhart, Susan, M. How to Give Effective
Feedback to Your Students, ASCD, 2008.
 ETS ATI, Portland, Oregon, 2008.