F2F feedback

What’s the issue?

At the moment… Service staff find it difficult to find useful information about student progress. Students don’t have a meaningful way of measuring their progress and achievement. Teachers often find it difficult to support student learning in and outside classes. They often complain that they “aren’t progressing”. A common question is: “How can I help my students to continue to progress and improve their English?” They often say: “If only I had access to clear information about how my students are doing, I could give them really good study advice.” How have you tried to solve these problems in the past?

What’s our solution? -Clear aims built into every F2F lesson lead to quantifiable student progress. -New activity sheets give students more opportunities to practice after lessons. -Focused and personal in-class feedback and assessment from teachers leads to greater support in lessons. -Specific and measurable after-class feedback from teachers leads to greater support after lessons. -A variety of tools on OBOE allow teachers and service staff to easily access information about student progress. So, let’s look at the details…

How? The new materials focus on: supporting achievement of lesson outcomes creating conditions for assessing students against these outcomes Step New F2F materials

The slides which offer opportunities for assessment have checkpoints in the teacher’s notes as a reminder to the teachers, and as a way to help them plan the lesson with the goal of reaching these checkpoints. materials

Evaluation forms for teachers to collect feedback and score students are provided. materials

Activity sheets for every F2F lesson link directly to the can-do statements from the lesson, allowing students to do further practice after class. materials

F2F feedback Step Assessment

materials In the new feedback system, students… receive both an evaluation of their performance against the can do statements (after-class) and feedback on how to improve (in-class). are able to review their achievement lesson by lesson, and across lessons to see how well they have done

Student view

*Student can mouse over the score to see what it means, i.e. 1 = Attempted, but not achieved 2 = Achieved 3 = Achieved with excellence Personal message from teacher On the feedback page, students can view their scores and summaries for each of the lesson can-do statements. The personal message from the teacher also appears here.

The student F2F Feedback Trends window on OBOE

Students can mouse over their scores to see more details.

Teacher view

Before providing scores and system comments, teachers have the opportunity to write a brief personalized message to the student.

Teachers select scores and system comments for each can-do statement

Teachers may share a brief comment with their colleagues about the student/student’s performance in the class. ( The student will not see this comment )

What’s the difference between personal messages and system comments? Personal messages are used by teachers to make a personal connection with their students. Personal messages are not used to comment on students’ use of English. “Thank you for your contribution to class today Leonard. You had some really good ideas for getting across the country.” System comments are used to explain scores to students. These comments are used specifically to help students with their use of English. They can be displayed in the student’s mother tongue as well as English. “Great job! You were consistently able to use the vocabulary correctly in context.”

How is F2F Feedback personal and specific? Personal Teachers provide students with personal feedback during every F2F lesson as part of their in-class feedback. Teachers also write every student a personal message as part of their after-class feedback, which helps to build relationships with students. Specific Teachers provide students with specific feedback during every F2F lesson as part of their in-class feedback. As part of their after-class feedback, students receive a specific numerical score for every can-do statement as well as clear comments that explain why they received this score.

Integrating in-class and after-class feedback. In-class feedback and after-class feedback must work together as a system. Teachers provide specific and personal feedback to every student whenever they reach an assessment checkpoint and at the end of every lesson. Teachers provide specific scores for every can-do statement after every lesson. Teachers provide a personal message to every student after every lesson. By ensuring that we provide students with high-quality feedback, both in- class and after-class, we provide our students with a superior learning experience, leading to greater improvement and higher student satisfaction.

Manager view

Managers can view a complete list of overdue feedback in their center. They are also able to provide feedback.

Managers are able to view and edit feedback that has already been published.

F2F Feedback Trends window

Mouse over the bar graph for further details

Filter by current level, current stage or all levels

Filter by comment category or score

Excel reports

Report for managers to monitor feedback Managers can monitor feedback given by all the teachers in their center according to the columns above. Each column can be filtered.

Report for central office to monitor regions The report can be generated according to the column titles above. Each column can be filtered.

Report for central office to monitor student level placement The report can be generated according to the column titles above. Each column can be filtered.

Does it work? Based on our experience at EF SMART China, we have found that… -Students appreciate receiving clear, measurable after-class feedback related to all the can-do statements in the lesson. -Students are happy when teachers provide them with useful advice on how to improve during their lessons. -Students value receiving personal messages as part of their online F2F feedback. -Teachers find the greater support and structure helps them to provide students with accurate and useful after-class feedback. -Service staff are able to provide students with more informed high- quality study advice based on their numerical scores.