Feedback 4

Summary and Suggestions

Feedback
• Works best as refinement to success rather than
pointing out mistakes
• Can use affect, process, and cognition to look for
improvements
• Will be coherent if learning intentions are clear
• Parameters are set by success criteria
Feedback (cont.)
• Can only influence factors already within learner’s
control to some degree
• Must be in form recipient understands
• Bridges between current performance and targeted
performance
• Provides correctives, advice, refinements,
reminders, supplements and/or reassurance
Feedback (cont.)
• Requires response from learner
• Must be given in time for learner to implement
suggestions
• Negative effects are tied to learner’s ego needs
• Pick your moment
• Know your learner
Feedback (cont.)
• Is a special instance of communication
• Comes first to teacher: seeing how things are going
• Follows after instruction
• Makes reflection productive
• Guides towards:
– more fruitful lines of enquiry
– extension activities
– consolidation
– increasing challenge
– more independence
Points to Consider
• Teachers think they’re providing more than they really
are
• Most comes from peers and is wrong
• Used well, can make big differences
• Praise doesn’t count
• Not expensive to implement
• Needs careful forethought
• Is about communication
• Is about how you talk to people
Things to Try

Comparing performance with peers

• Good work (success) gets just a tick, grade or
score
• Faulty work (errors) gets comments or red pen
• Success means nothing extra to do (reward)
• Failure means corrections to do (more work)
Things to Try (cont.)

Substitute annotation with +, = or -

• + means better than previous work
• = means same as previous work
• - means not as good as previous work
Things to Try (cont.)
Response to feedback is within learner’s control
• + means they must do even more to keep getting
+
• = means they must do more to get +
• - means they must improve their performance
• Comparing performance with past performance
emphasises what they can do to improve
• Comparing performance with others’ moves
improvement outside immediate control
Things to Try (cont.)

Don’t put or  beside what’s right and wrong

• Say instead: six of these are right, four are wrong,
find which is which…

Three questions
• Mark three places in work where you want learner
to reflect
• At the end, ask a question for each reflection
• Leave space for learner to respond
Things to Try (cont.)
To get learners to read comments, write them separately
• Return work to group of three or four, along with
separate comments
• Ask group to match comments to corresponding work
Things to Try (cont.)

Don’t overwhelm with multiple suggestions

• Focus on one or two features to be worked on
• Less feedback  more impact  greater chance of
improvement
Things to Try (cont.)
Use separate occasions for acknowledging success and
suggesting improvements
• ‘If you really want to grade work, don’t waste time writing
feedback
• If you’ve written feedback, don’t undermine yourself by
slapping on a grade
• If you really want to tell a student what went well, don’t then
waste time on how to make it even better
• Praise this work and give feedback for improvement on that.
Don’t spoil it by doing both at once’

See http://www.learningspy.co.uk/featured/what-does-feedback-look-like/
Things to Try (cont.)

Make proofreading the learner’s responsibility

• Expect that work must be proofread – best if this is
whole-school approach
• Show what it means: rereading own work and finding common
mistakes
• Offer two stages of marking for older learners:
– once to get suggestions
– once for the mark that gets recorded
• Offer option to choose feedback instead of mark
Things to Try (cont.)
Train classes in assessment standards you expect to see
• If they can apply assessment criteria to themselves and
each other, that reduces marking and makes peer
assessment accessible and worthwhile
• Point out standard mistakes that happen often
• Display them as list
• Learners must check they haven’t made any mistakes
on list
• Only then look at individual work
Things to Try (cont.)

Written or spoken feedback?

• Doesn’t appear to matter which – as long as
time for improvements afterwards
• But – written feedback has time costs, so
restrict it to fewer occasions and make these
worthwhile
Things to Try (cont.)

Peer feedback
• Train class in feedback at level of:
– task
– process
– self-regulation
• Use Gan’s graphic organiser
• Customise questions to topic