Feedback RCPS 30/07/2013

You can lead a horse to water ……

[It is] … most effective when it What is good feedback? [It is] … most effective when it is timely, perceived as relevant, meaningful and encouraging, and offers suggestions for improvement that are within a student’s grasp (Brown, Bull, & Pendlebury, 1997).

Feedback is any response made in relation to students’ work such as an assessment task, a performance or product. It can be given by a teacher, an external assessor or a student peer. It is usually spoken or written.

Feedback is intended to acknowledge the progress students have made towards achieving their goals or the learning outcomes of a unit.

Good feedback is constructive, points students to ways in which they can improve their learning and achievement. Providing a mark or a grade only, even with a brief comment like “good work” or “you need to improve” is rarely helpful.

Good feedback is focused and students have an opportunity to act on the feedback. It is well developed, text specific “What’s your main point here? If it’s that you disagree, put that idea up front and explain.” Provides clear direction: “Consider integrating these ideas,” and “Be more specific. Say where and when.”

Feedback needs to be timely: given early in a unit, or promptly after assessment tasks, so that students have sufficient opportunity to use the feedback for improving subsequent performance.

Levels Major questions Three feedback questions 1 Task How well has the task been performed; is it correct or incorrect? Where am I going? What are my goals? 2 Process What are the strategies needed to perform the task; are there alternative strategies that can be used? How am I going? What progress is being made towards the goal? 3 Self-regulation Does the feedback allow the student to monitor their own learning processes? Do they have the knowledge and understanding to know what they are doing? Where to next? What activities need to be undertaken next to make better progress? 4 Self Personal evaluation and affect about the learning

Ensure your students know what you mean by feedback. Be very clear with students that your role as a teacher is not to spoon-feed them, and not to “make them do things”, but to make their learning possible (Ramsden, 1992).

Your role is to inform, question, prompt, assess, encourage and guide your students to achieve the learning outcomes. Let your students know that a large part of your role is to provide feedback on their progress towards achieving the learning outcomes.

More than two decades of research shows that a focus on effort —not on intelligence or ability— is key to success in school and in life. Marzano: Students generally attribute success to 4 causes: Ability Effort Other People Luck Belief in EFFORT is clearly the most useful

GROWTH: Learning is Most Important: What do Mindsets Look Like in Students? GROWTH: Learning is Most Important: “It’s much more important for me to learn things in my classes than it is to get the best grades.” FIXED: Looking Smart is Most Important: “The main thing I want when I do my school work is to show how good I am at it.”

They simply have not given up. Effort-based ability is the belief that all students can do rigorous academic work at high standards, even if they are far behind academically and need a significant amount of time to catch up. Educators who carry this belief into their practice are not unrealistic about the obstacles they and their students face. They simply have not given up. Jonathan Saphier

Form pairs, person “A” and person “B” Think of a typical classroom scenario in which you as a teacher are giving praise feedback to a student on a piece of work she/he has completed. Practice using “words that encourage a growth mindset” and avoiding “fixed mindset labels.”

When approaching the point of feedback, (mentally) ask three things of the student and use these to frame your feedback: • What were you trying to do? • How did you do it? • Why did you do it that way?

Questions to Nurture a Growth Mindset What did you learn today? What did you try hard at today? What mistake did you make that taught you something? What was a challenge today? What did you practice today?

Questions that help a student to self-assess are: • What have I been doing? • How have I been doing it? • What do I think of what I have been doing? • How could I improve my approach?

The Effect of Praise The words we use can impart a mindset… Our words have great power over our students’ motivation and effort! Praise the process not the intelligence, the talent or the product: our mission is to develop potential.

Remember that praising children’s intelligence or talent, tempting as it is, sends a fixed-mindset message. Try to focus on the processes they used: their strategies, effort, or choices.

‘This lack of support for praise does not mean that we should be horrible to the students … The message is that for feedback to be effective in the act of learning, praise dissipates the message. Praise the students and make them feel welcomed to your class and worthwhile as learners, but if you wish to make a major difference to learning, leave praise out of the feedback about learning.” John Hattie

Here are examples of unhelpful feedback (Chamberlain, Dison & Button, 1998). Unfocused comments: • “Confused” • “Generally sound” • “Adequate” • “Careful how you begin your sentences.” Dismissive, sarcastic comments: • “Did you experiment to find all this?” • “Most of this is straight out of the book.” Comments that ‘pass the buck’: • “You need help with your English.” • “See an academic skills advisor.” Comments sending mixed messages: • “Text is based on only a few readings and not on your own thinking.” • “Follow your own advice.”

In general, to give useful feedback: • Keep the time between the task and the feedback short • When using criteria or checklists for formative marking, keep the criteria clear and simple • Balance the positive with the negative • Indicate how the student can improve • Avoid sarcasm • Use simple language

Effective Feedback is one of the most powerful ways to improve student achievement. Effective feedback shows where we are in relationship to the objectives AND what we need to do to get there. Effective feedback coaches toward better performance

Effective feedback helps students learn from their mistakes. In moments of failure, students need our feedback the most. The best thing we can do for students who fail is to provide them an honest assessment of why they failed and show them how to do better next time. Honour “wrong answers” as an opportunity to learn. Get students to risk being wrong. (Really good for perfectionists).

When a child messes up, constructive criticism is feedback that helps the child understand how to FIX something. It’s not feedback that labels or simply excuses the child. Set goals your children can work toward. Having innate talent is not a goal; expanding skills and knowledge is. Talk about the skills you have today that you didn’t yesterday, because of the effort and practice you put in. Describe with relish things you are struggling with and making progress on. Share and discuss your own and other’s effort, strategies, setbacks and learning!

How do we celebrate success? Does how we treat student’s success influence students to take ownership of their own work? Do rewards motivate students to do the right thing? Who does it put the onus on?

Assumptions: The teacher must do something to motivate the students The teacher must watch that the students are doing what they are supposed to do The teacher must identify the reward the teacher must deliver the reward The students do what they are supposed to do anyway not because it is their job but because they may get a reward.

Would celebrating successes leave the onus where it should be, with the student?