The Assistance Relay: Achieving Balance in Giving & Receiving During the Tutoring Session Dana Verdino & Allyson Heafner Gaston College Writing Center 1

The Assistance Dilemma Best Practices in Tutor Feedback What is Feedback? The Assistance Dilemma Best Practices in Tutor Feedback Feedback in the Writing Session 2

What is Feedback? “Effective feedback, however, shows where we are in relationship to the objectives and what we need to do to get there. “It helps our students see the assignments and tasks we give them as opportunities to learn and grow rather than as assaults on their self-concept. “And, effective feedback allows us to tap into a powerful means of not only helping students learn, but helping them get better at learning.” ~ Robyn R. Jackson 3

What is Feedback? “Effective feedback not only tells students how they performed, but how to improve the next time they engage the task. Effective feedback is provided in such a timely manner that the next opportunity to perform the task is measured in seconds, not weeks or months.” ~ Douglas Reeves, 2007 4

What is Feedback? “Academic feedback is more strongly and consistently related to achievement than any other teaching behavior….This relationship is consistent regardless of grade, socioeconomic status, race, or school setting….When feedback and corrective procedures are used, most students can attain the same level of achievement as the top 20% of students.” ~ Bellon, Bellon & Blank 5

Characteristics of Feedback Timely “The more delay that occurs in giving feedback, the less improvement there is in achievement” (Marzano, 2007). Constructive/Corrective Choose areas of feedback based on those that relate to major learning goals and essential elements of the assignment. Should be encouraging and help students realize that effort results in more learning (Marzano, 2007). Verified Did the student understand the feedback? What is my follow up plan to monitor and assist the student in these areas?) 6

Amounts of Feedback How much assistance should be provided and which level of assistance reduces mental effort? Koedinger and Aleven (2007) coined this problem the Assistance Dilemma. 7

Amounts of Feedback Koedinger, et al., 2008 8

Amounts of Feedback COGNITIVE LOAD - the total amount of mental effort being used in the working memory. Cognitive Load Theory (e.g., Sweller, Van Merriënboer, & Paas, 1998) suggests how some typical forms of instruction put “extraneous” processing demands on students that may detract from learning. Higher levels of assistance or guidance, for instance in the form of more frequent use of worked solution examples, lead to both more efficient learning and better transfer. 9

Amounts of Feedback 10

Amounts of Feedback Sweller and Cooper (1985) viewed worked examples as a means of limiting problem-solving search activities. Kalyuga, Chandler, Tuovinen, and Sweller (2001) posited that providing a worked example instead of a conventional problem should reduce a learner’s cognitive load because it reduces the need for searching for a solution and instead requires the learner to study the problem and the steps needed to solve the problem without trial and error. 11

Amounts of Feedback Contrary to calls for maximal guidance (Kirshner et al., 2006), it appears that mid-level assistance (integrated examples and problems) leads to better robust learning efficiency than lower (all problems) or higher (all examples) levels of assistance. 12

Feedback Techniques Depending on the subject matter, this balance of assistance, as defined in the literature as the distance between declarative and procedural knowledge, giving and withholding information, undesirable difficulty and the crutch, can be achieved with a variety of feedback techniques that enhance motivation, performance, and reflection. 13

Tutoring Medium Intelligent tutoring systems are being designed to provide optimal student feedback, though research posits that human tutors increase the mean performance about two standard deviations compared to students taught in classrooms (Bloom, 1984). The most effective intelligent tutoring systems raise performance about one standard deviation above classroom instruction (Anderson et al., 1995; VanLehn et al., 2005). A human tutor may have to explain the rules differently based on what is causing the student difficulty in solving the problem. In addition, research (Orsmond, Merry, and Reiling, 2002) suggests that meaningful feedback given in the form of human tutoring can better enhance motivation, clarify understanding, and encourage reflection. 14

At the Writing Center Feedback from the writing tutor should be framed within Global and Local errors. In the primary stages of paper development, the distinction to make during the tutoring session is that of “global errors—those that interfere with the overall message of the text—and local errors, which do not inhibit a readers’ comprehension” (Ferris, 2002). 16

At the Writing Center Identifying a Purpose Once a conversation about the assignment purpose has commenced, the tutor/instructor asks the writer to begin reading each paragraph. The tutor/instructor might ask: Which aspect of your theory does this paragraph relate to? What is the purpose of this paragraph? Delineating Support The student writer explains how each sentence relates to the purpose of the paragraph by answering such questions: What is the purpose of the first sentence? (i.e. Is it a topic sentence, introducing the purpose of the paragraph? Does the sentence provide a transition from the idea(s) of the preceding paragraph?) Meyer, et al. 17

At the Writing Center Local Feedback: Grammatical errors should be addressed after global issues are worked through (one paragraph at a time). “Getting students obsessed with grammar problems at early stages of the draft is to distract them from developing their ideas in relation to their purpose and audience” (Ferris, 2002). “The tutor/instructor should keep in mind that the student can continue to play an active role in regard to grammar correction, using indirect feedback techniques in which the tutor/instructor points out the location or type of error but require the student to follow up with her/his own revisions.” 18

The Assistance Relay in the Writing Session Motivation – Develop rapport, establish purpose, set objectives Value-Neutral Language – Provide some positive feedback up front, then continue with neutral descriptive language. Timely Feedback – Take one paragraph at a time: First, address the global errors, then the local errors. Give & Withhold – Identify problems, model problem-solving through example, then prompt student to do the same with similar errors. Scaffold – Reduce cognitive load by determining level of feedback necessary. Repetition may be necessary, as well as questioning to encourage problem-solving. 19

Writing Tutor Game Plan 20

Video Activity https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zzg4gRBVnM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1P_KEYeGB0 Discuss elements of the feedback provided by the tutors in the videos. Diagnostic, Formative, & Summative Feedback High assistance, low assistance Cognitive Load Best Practices 21

It's a marathon, not a sprint... “Students must have routine access to the criteria and standards for the task they need to master; they must have feedback in their attempts to master those tasks; and they must have opportunities to use the feedback to revise work and resubmit it for evaluation against the standard. Excellence is attained by such cycles of model-practice-perform- feedback-perform.” ~ Grant Wiggins 22

References Brookhart, Susan M. How to Give Effective Feedback to Your Students. ASCD, 2008. Davies, Anne. “Involving Students in the Classroom Assessment Process” Ahead of the Curve: The Power of Assessment to Transform Teaching and Learning. Douglas Reeves, Editor. Solution Tree, 2007. Marzano(1), Robert. Classroom Instruction that Works. ASCD, 2001. Marzano(2), Robert. “Designing a Comprehensive Approach to Classroom Assessment.” Ahead of the Curve: The Power of Assessment to Transform Teaching and Learning. Douglas Reeves, Editor. Solution Tree, 2007. 23

References, page 2 Miser, W. Fred. “Providing Students with Effective Feedback” Academic Leadership LIVE: The Online Journal; Volume 4, Issue 4, February 12, 2007. Reeves, Douglas. “Challenges and Choices: The Role of Educational Leaders in Effective Assessment.” Ahead of the Curve: The Power of Assessment to Transform Teaching and Learning. Douglas Reeves, Editor. Solution Tree, 2007. Stiggins, Rick. “Assessment for Learning: An Essential Foundation of Productive Instruction.” Ahead of the Curve: The Power of Assessment to Transform Teaching and Learning. Douglas Reeves, Editor. Solution Tree, 2007. Wiggins, Grant. Educative Assessment: Designing Assessments to Inform and Improve Student Performance. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Inc., 1998. 24