Feedback in the classroom is extremely important in order to help students to succeed, but what is true feedback? True feedback is not just advice, evaluation, and grades because none of these gives students the proper tools to improve and reach their goals. Feedback is often described as comments made after the fact, including advice, praise, and evaluation. However, none of these are actual feedback. Instead, true feedback is actually information about how we are doing in our efforts to reach a certain goal. To put this into perspective, I will give an example of proper feedback below.
"I'm really happy with your determination to finish this project. I know it wasn't easy, but I knew you could do it. Your helpful attitude makes it clear that you can continue to take on new challenges and grow in this class. Keep up the good work."
Now, this is a great example of proper, helpful feedback. Notice how this example involves deliberate, explicit giving of feedback by another person. The feedback above was not advice, nor was the performance evaluated. It also did not tell the person receiving the feedback what to do. This type of feedback will never improve learning in the classroom. There is a big difference between feedback versus advice. An example of advice would be as follows:
"I think that you did a good job so far on your essay; however, I really think that you should re-do your whole introduction. It does not pertain to the essay topic and sounds messy. If you re-do it you will have a better shot at getting a good grade."
This example of advice is doing the complete opposite of feedback. It is telling the person exactly what they should do and sort of criticizing their work at the same time. This will not help the student whatsoever. Instead, it will only make them feel bad about themselves and their work.
For decades, education research has supported the idea that by teaching less and providing more feedback instead, we can produce greater learning in the classroom. If a teacher is consistently giving lectures in the classroom it will produce less than optimal learning. Instead, if a teacher incorporates a more peer instruction type of learning within the classroom, students will consistently be provided with frequent feedback about the level of understanding of the subject being discussed. All in all, less teaching = better results.
Effective feedback contains many different components. Some of the components include: goal-referenced, tangible/transparent, actionable, user-friendly, timely, ongoing, and consistent. To be more clear, I will define these components below.
1. Goal-referenced: Effective feedback must be centered around a goal and make sure the person receives goal-related information about his or her actions.
2. Tangible/Transparent: Useful feedback involves not only a clear goal, but also tangible results related to said goal.
3. Actionable: Effective feedback is concrete, specific, and useful; it provides actionable information.
4. User-friendly: Effective feedback must be user-friendly so that the user can easily understand it or is not overwhelmed by it.
5. Timely: Effective feedback must be communicated as soon as possible and in a timely manner. It does not need to be immediate, but it should be received sooner rather than later.
6. Ongoing: Students must have ample opportunities to utilize effective feedback. This way, students will be able to reshape their performance to better achieve the goal they are working toward.
7. Consistent: Effective feedback must be consistent because students can only adjust their performance successfully if the information fed back to them is stable, accurate, and trustworthy.
Now, you might be wondering: How can schools implement effective feedback as part of a system of formative assessment? The answer is somewhat simple. Educators must gear feedback toward long-term goals. This is because an individual's ability to focus on long-term goals is heavily reliant on ongoing feedback that measures performance. Educators must also focus their teaching methods on more feedback and less teaching. This way, students will be able to take their learning to the next level.
Comments
Post a Comment