1. Feedback and Improvement in Student Learning
Helen Timperley
Professor of Education
The University of Auckland
New Zealand

2. Auckland
Wellington
Christchurch

5. Overview of Presentation
Feedback and its power
Challenges for teachers
An inquiry and knowledge building cycle for improvement
Note will leave overview of New Zealand’s education system to the New Zealand speaker later in the programme

6. Feedback
Information provided by someone or something to a learner about aspects of performance or understanding
Feedback follows teaching
May be seen as new teaching when it fills gap between what is understood and what is aimed to be understood

7. Influences on Achievement ? (Hattie, 2009)
Decreased
Enhanced
Zero 7

8. The typical influence on achievement (Hattie, 2009)
The typical effect across
800+ meta-analysis
50,000 studies, and
200+ million students

9. Effect on Achievement over time?
Typical Effect Size
.20
.40
1.0
Decreased
Enhanced
Zero

10. Where feedback fits (Hattie, 2009)
1 Acceleration (speed up a year)
2 Feedback
3 Student-teacher relationships .72
Teaching study skills
Cooperative learning
Homework
Mentoring
Ability grouping
9 Retention (hold back a year)
Acknowledge variability – different studies found different effects because feed back not always beneficial and teachers not necessarily expert in giving effective feedback

11. The Power of Feedback
Comes from being embedded in strategies involving:
Student self-report grades (Rank 1)
Formative evaluation (Rank 3)
Teacher clarity (Rank 8)
But not all feedback promotes student learning

12. What feedback would you give to this student? (Parr & Timperley, 2010)
Learning objective: To learn how to structure a recount (an account of some event that has occurred)
Intended audience and purpose: Tell your friends in an interesting way about a trip you have been on
This student wrote about a trip to Sydney and Brisbane (Australia)
Write down two pieces of feedback you would give to this student

13. Hi I am at home planning my next trip to synedy and Brisbaned for Christmas and New years
day I am going to stay in syned for a week and I am going to stay in Brisburnd for a week with
my mum’s flat mate. When I went over to synedy las time I met rua hes a dog of chris’s. Chris is one of marys flat mate now last time when I went there I had to count his money. Then there is nan she has 3 children one is around 14 years old the seoncod is 2 years old and the youngst child is nine mothes old. Then I went to Brisbured. When I got to Synedy I am going to go to all this fantsey parks and and I am going to stay in a hotal.
Provided with learning aims and success criteria and an overview of the lesson.

14. Feedback can be detrimental
When it does not give information about how to improve, for example:
Tentative grades with no comments
Feedback associated with extrinsic rewards
Personal praise / criticism that distracts from the task
My day is boring and I don’t know what this assignment is about. D-
You are so clever

15. Purpose – to reduce discrepancy between current understandings and a desired goal
Ways to reduce the discrepancy
Increase effort or abandon goal
Answers three questions
Where am I going? How am I going? Where to next?
Self- Regulation
Task
Task
Process
Self

16. Purpose
To reduce discrepancies between current understandings / performance and a desired goal
Key conditions:
Students must have a learning goal
Answers the question, “Where am I going?
Most effective when goals are specific and challenging but not too difficult

17. Ways to reduce the discrepancy
Increase effort using more effective strategies
Abandon, blur or lower the goal
Key conditions:
Teachers work with students to identify appropriate challenging and specific goals
Teachers assist students to reach them through effective learning strategies
“Where to next?”

18. Students Students Answers three questions Where am I going? Goal
Where to Next?
How am I doing?
Where am I going?
Students
Students
Answers three questions
Where am I going? Goal
How am I going? Feedback
Where to next? Feed-forward

19. Each feedback question works at four levels
How well the tasks are understood / performed
Task level
The main processes needed to understand / perform tasks
Process level
Self Regulation
Self-monitoring, directing
and regulation of actions
Personal evaluations and affect (usually positive) about the learner
Self level

20. Hi I am at home planning my next trip to synedy and Brisbaned for Christmas and New years
day I am going to stay in syned for a week and I am going to stay in Brisburnd for a week with
my mum’s flat mate. When I went over to synedy las time I met rua hes a dog of chris’s. Chris is one of marys flat mate now last time when I went there I had to count his money. Then there is nan she has 3 children one is around 14 years old the seoncod is 2 years old and the youngs child is nine mothes old. Then I went to Brisbured. When I got to Synedy I am going to go to all this fantsey parks and and I am going to stay in a hotal.
Provided with learning aims and success criteria and an overview of the lesson.

21. How Would Your Feedback Have Scored?
For a high score (on our rubric):
Feedback provides an indication of:
Extent to which the writer met the learning objective (structuring recounts)
Extent to which writing had features associated with audience and purpose for writing (friends about an interesting trip)
What action the writer could take to improve 

22. The Research Results 49 teachers
Relationship between the quality of feedback score and gains in student achievement on a nationally normed measure of writing (asTTle) highly significant (r=.685, p<.01)

23. A second study (Timperley & Parr, 2009)
In a professional development project we examined extent to which teachers were explicit about and students understood
Learning objectives
Success criteria
Feedback
Feed forward
15 teachers, observed lessons (with microphones), students interviewed

24. Teachers’ Learning Sequence
Clarity of learning objectives and success criteria developed first for teachers (and understood by students)
Found personal praise difficult to stop;
Feedback about task & process rare;
Feed forward almost non-non-existent

25. Learning How to Give Feedback in Ways that Promote Student Learning
Requires that teachers’ professional learning is carefully scaffolded over time (in the same way as student learning)
Teachers identify learning goals with students
Identify own professional learning goals about feedback practice for themselves (in relation to students’ learning goals)
Seek feedback from students and leaders on their progress
Readjust their feedback practice
And so on ...
Why relate it to student learning goals – teachers thought they were giving quality feedback but those who learned most successfully were tuned into students’ responses. Emphasise ‘with”
Teaching practices are not inherently good or bad independently of how students respond – feedback that can look good on its own can only be considered effective if students are responding differently.
Reject a decontextualised knowledge transmission model for students so we should for teacher learning – must be contextualised in the challenges of teaching and learning

26. Timperley, H. (2008) Teacher Professional Learning and Development
Timperley, H. (2008) Teacher Professional Learning and Development. International Academy of Education. International Bureau of Education. Paris: UNESCO

27. to promote student outcomes for teachers
Teacher inquiry and knowledge-building cycle
to promote student outcomes for teachers
What knowledge and skills do our students need?
What knowledge and skills do we as teachers need?
What has been the impact of our changed actions?
Deepen professional knowledge and refine skills
Engage students in new learning experiences

28. Re-assess students’ knowledge and skills
Deepen student and professional learning focus
Relationship between professional and student learning
Re-assess students’ knowledge and skills
Professionals refine feedback practices
Observe how students respond (Prof feedback)
Professionals assisted to Identify feedback practices and new skills required
Assess students’ knowledge and skills
Can’t learn teaching skills out of context – need to be in context.
If student learning is to be enhanced, need to learn about feedback practice in relation to promoting student learning.
Or just becomes a set of practices that are soon forgotten.

29. Students Principals Teachers Feedback and Improvement Where to Next?
How are we doing?
Where are we going?
Students
Principals
Teachers
Feedback and Improvement

30. For Rest of the Day: Think about How Teachers Can Inquire and Build Knowledge
High stakes testing and student learning
National Monitoring system
Criteria development with teachers
Macro or micro assessment policy
Assessment in Curriculum of Excellence
Developing an ‘assessment for learning’ culture
I’ve outlined some of the professional learning demands for teacdhers to learn how to give feedback to students.
For the rest of the day, think about the professional learning demands so assessment practices can lead to improved student learning so everyone is answering the three questions