Sustainable Feedback
Our school teaching body is currently thinking about feedback. What it is, how best to use it, what effect(s) it has. Thinking about this, I believe it is important to consider the range of options available and consider the outcomes weighed against the cost.
Typically stakeholders might consider feedback to be the comment(s) left by teachers at the end of a piece of work that has been handed in to be marked. This gives the teacher an opportunity to see how students approach a certain problem/essay question and allows teachers the opportunity to direct learners back on track or beyond what they have achieved.
There are a number of issues with this form of feedback however. Top amongst them is the time taken to give this type of feedback to a whole class. That’s a large investment. Is it worth it? That’s not a question that can be answered generally but a look at what is done with the feedback in following lessons would be a reasonable way to decide.
Another issue is the time delay between the task being completed and the feedback being given. Homework might be completed the same day, a class may only be seen once a week. That’s feasibly 14 days between completion and feedback. Is that quick enough? Again not a question that can be answered generally but certainly something to be considered when setting and collecting work in.
What other options are there? I will try to offer ideas that address the issues of teacher time, turnaround time and scrutiny (i.e. checking students have completed the task).
One thing I am sure of is that some students will prioritize homework according to who they think is most likely to check completion. So for some classes, and for all classes at the start of the year, I would suggest that checking completion by all students at least briefly should be a priority. Once that has been done, obvious problems can be discussed — perhaps students could come to the front to share their ideas. Answers can then be shared for students to self mark (if the task requires).
Less often but for perhaps synoptic tasks — end of chapter review exercises for example, the teacher might spend longer with each student when moving around the class. Specific questions that capture important learning points might be focused on and form the basis for more detailed learning conversations. How did you get this? Why did you write this? What did you mean by this? How could you conclude?
This takes longer but requires less of teacher time outside of the lesson and gives learners detailed feedback closer to when they completed the task.
The problem of what the rest of the class is doing arises at this point and this will depend on your classroom, but this could be an opportunity for learners to improve independent study skills. Can they read ahead and familiarise themselves with new content? Could they take the opportunity to revise an earlier topic? Could they discuss issues with the current task with neighbours? Could they do more problems from the same exercise?
Once the students have all been spoken to, a summary comment about common problems could be shared but also a discussion of what students did in the time they had.
This is all a work in progress and I’d be happy to hear your thoughts. Please comment below.
