Feedback
Hattie - from Visible Learning 2012
Feedback quality may have more impact on student achievement than any other factor.
Average effect size is 0.79 (Visible Learning) which is twice the average effect size of all other schooling effects.
Feedback is in the top ten influences on achievement.
Sadler
Gap feedback aims to reduce the gap between where the student "is" and where he or she is "meant to be" (1989)
In order for feedback to be effective and useful;
Hattie & Timperley (2006)
Feedback serves various purposes in reducing this gap;
Erors
Feedback thrives on error!
Error is the difference between what we know and can do, and what we aim to know and do - and this applies to us all. Knowing this error is fundamental to moving towards success.
This is the purpose of feedback
The 3 important feedback questions!
Where am I going?
Relates to goals.
Teachers need to communicate to students the goals of the lesson/learning task/home learning task.
Hence the importance of learning intentions and success criteria.
Where am I going?
Can our students articulate the goals of the lesson?
Or are their goals performance related?
"finish the task"; "make it neat" etc - part of this is due to so many lessons being about facts, teacher talk, covering the curriculum - these lessons beg for performance goals, students have little notion of what mastery and deep learning looks like
Should our goals be mastery related?
"understand the content"; "master the skill" etc
Where am I going?
Key components of this first question are;
Essential that both teacher and student know these.
"Students who speak in terms of and understand these notions are students who have made great headway in regulation of their own learning, and students who are more likely to seek feedback" Hattie
How am I going to get there?
This highlights the idea of progress feedback or feedback relating to the starting/finishing point.
It may give expected standard of learning (linked to prior performance) or to success or failure on a specific part of the task.
How am I going to get there?
Five key strategies that teachers can use in this phase to make learning more effective
Where to next?
This feedback can assist with;
Aim is not just to provide students with the answer "Where to next?" but also to teach them to create their own answers to this question.
Three levels of feedback
Task Level
This is information focussed (for example, correct or incorrect) and leads to acquiring more or different information, building on surface knowledge.
This is common in our classrooms and most students see feedback in these terms. Usually through questioning, comments on marked work, whole class feedback.
Prompts
Do they meet the success criteria?
Is their answer correct/incorrect?
How can they elaborate on the answer?
What did they do well?
Where did they go wrong?
What is the correct answer?
What other info is needed to meet the goals?
Process Level
This level aims at the process used to complete the task.
Examples are;
Feedback at this level is more effective for enhancing deeper learning than the task level
Prompts
What is wrong and why?
What strategies did they use?
What is the explanation of the correct answer?
What other questions can they ask about the task?
What are the relationships with other parts of the task?
What other info is provided?
What is their understanding of the concepts/knowledge related to the task?
Self Regulation Level
This level focuses on the students' monitoring of their own learning process.
This feedback can enable;
This feedback is usually in the form of reflection and probing questions.
Prompts
How can they monitor their own work?
How can they carry out self checking?
How can they evaluate the info provided?
How can they reflect on their own learning?
What did you do to..?
What happened when you..?
How can you account for..?
What justification can you..?
How does this compare to..?
What learning goals have you achieved?
Have your ideas changed?
Could you teach another student how to..?
To praise or not to praise...
Provide praise, but don't give it in such a way that it dilutes the power of feedback.
Keep praise and feedback about the learning separate.
Praise includes little information about performance on the task and praise provides little help in answering the three feedback questions.
Evidence
Praise led to lower attainment and effort.
Praising a person as a whole led to zero or negative effects on achievement and that effects of praise are particularly negative not when students succeed but when they begin to fail or not understand the task.
Almost half of teachers' feedback was praise and that premature and gratuitous praise confused students and discouraged revisions. Teachers often used praise to mitigate critical comments, which diluted the positive effect of these comments.
Praising effort has no effect when students are successful and is likely not be negative when students are not successful.
To sum up
For feedback to be effective in the act of learning, praise dissipates the message
Praise the students and make them feel worthwhile as learners, but if you wish to make a major difference to learning, leave praise out of feedback about learning.
Hattie 2012
When feedback draws attention to the self, students try to avoid the risks involved in tackling a challenging assignment - particularly if they have a high feel of failure, and therefore to minimise the risk to their self.
We need to be moving the students through
"What do I know and what can I do?"
"What do I not know know and what can I not do?"
"What can I teach others/myself about what I now know and can do?"
Public Critique
Based on Ron Berger's three Public Critique rules;
Be Kind
It's essential that students feel safe in this critiquing environment.
Students and teachers need to be vigilant against any hurtful comments, including sarcasm.
Ideally a Public Critique protocol (of these rules) is explained and agreed by all.
Be Specific
Comments like "your work is good" and "I like it" are not useful.
Important to focus on vocabulary building in the critique process.
"if we picture our critique as surgically dissecting a piece of work to improve it, our vocabulary is our kit of surgical tools. If we only have words like 'it's good' or 'it's bad' we are trying to do surgery with a meat cleaver. If we want to dissect the work carefully and put it back together well, we need a kit of precise tools" Ron Berger
Be Helpful
The goal is to help the individual student and the class and not for the critic to be heard.
Also, important that echoing the thoughts of other students or pointing out details that are not significant do not help the Public Critique process.
Students should critique the work and learning, not the student.
Work that Matters: The teacher's guide to project-based learning - Innovation Unit 2012
Some assessment strategies...
Resources
Public Critique
Collaborate with a person you feel comfortable working with - critique each other's assessment policies.
Sadler
Gap feedback aims to reduce the gap between where the student "is" and where he or she is "meant to be" (1989)
In order for feedback to be effective and useful;
Feedback