feedback resources & Blog/chat section
One of the most important, but often overlooked, teaching strategies is feedback. For many educators, the time and effort put into unit planning, lesson design, and lesson delivery is undercut by the lack of time and effort put into quality feedback systems. Most students receive ineffective feedback in terms of a simple letter grade that does little to help them learn to improve their performance. Hattie has much to say on the subject of feedback, which has one of the highest effect sizes of 0.75. According to Visible Learning for Teachers (2012) feedback "can provide cues that capture a person's attention and helps him or her to focus on succeeding with the task; it can provide information about ideas that have been misunderstood; and it can be motivational so that students invest more effort or skill in the task" (p. 129). Therefore, it is imperative that teachers spend as much time giving students quality feedback as planning for the lesson.
This section of the website will detail Hattie's approach to feedback while also linking to other resources to assist with this process.
This section of the website will detail Hattie's approach to feedback while also linking to other resources to assist with this process.
Three questions to consider
where am i going?Students must begin any learning task with the explicit knowledge of where that task is leading them, i.e. what exactly is the goal of the lesson and larger learnings taking place. Oftentimes, students will identify the goal of a lesson in terms of task completion rather than the larger mastery goals and objectives. Hattie (2012) stresses that "teachers need to know, and communicate to students, the goals of the lesson" (p. 131).
Teachers have a variety of resources when it comes to goal setting for the units and lessons, but, as has been previously stressed on this website, one of the best ways to be intentional when it comes to learning goals is through backwards design. The work of Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe on this subject is crucial knowledge for all educators. Understanding by Design Professional Books:
How am i going there?This next question centers on the idea of feedback in relation to the starting and ending points in a lesson or unit. Frequent and varied checks for understanding underscore this question and provide opportunities for formative assessment along the way toward meeting the stated goals. Hattie (2012) notes that at this stage it is "most valuable to provide rapid formative feedback . . . relative to the criteria of success rather than comparative to where other students are" (p. 132). Additionally, he identifies five broad strategies: clarifying and sharing learning intentions; engineering effective classroom discussions, questions, and learning tasks; feedback that moves students forward; encouraging students to own their learning; and having students serve as instructional resources to each other (p. 132).
Attached below is an excellent list of 60 different ways teachers can use formative assessments and checks for understanding throughout a lesson. This list was compiled by the Orange County Public Schools (2012).
where to next?As a lesson or unit is finished, it is vital for students to know where their learning is going next and how the skills learned thus far will aid them in future learnings or where those skills still need to be developed for later success. Part of the goal of education is for students to become self-regulating and able to tackle learning challenges more and more independently as they move through school, and ideally, the adult working world beyond. For students, this question is generally of the most interest and a place for teachers to "teach them [students] to have their own answers to this question" (Hattie, 2012, p. 132).
One way for teachers to help their students understand next steps is through the use of criterion referenced rubrics. Rubrics may used for a variety of purposes from formative to summative; often, educators miss an opportunity to help students grow when they do not consider using the rubric as a way for students to set their own learning goals anchored in the criteria for success. For example, after a writing assignment, students should look at their past performance on the rubric and then use language from the rubric to set goals for the next assignment. |
levels of feedback
Feedback levels work in concert with the three guiding questions above, but more importantly, the four levels of feedback "correspond to the phases of learning from novice, through proficient, to competent" (Hattie, 2012, p. 133). Teachers must be versed in the varied types of feedback and how feedback can be tailored to the stages of learning.
Task and product levelFeedback at the task and product level aims to answer the basic question of whether the student is "right or wrong" in their understanding of the material being learned. This type of feedback is the most commonly employed in classrooms and can be powerful when given to the whole class and when first learning a concept. Hattie suggests that "task feedback is critical and serves as a pedestal on which processing and self-regulation can be effectively built" (p. 133).
Major Questions (Hattie, 2012, p. 130)
process levelThis type of feedback addresses the processes students use while doing a task or making a product and is generally seen as more productive than task level feedback. Hattie (2012) identifies several examples of the process level that include “helping to provide connections between ideas, providing strategies for identifying errors, learning how to explicitly learn from mistakes, and providing cues about different strategies or errors” (p. 134). This type of feedback is best when provided formatively and it can help students be more self-reliant and aware of multiple learning strategies.
Major Questions (Hattie, 2012, p. 130)
self-regulation or conditional levelFeedback at this level helps a student own their learning experience as they grapple with the learning cycle. It is at this point that the teacher can help students establish grit and perseverance through the learning cycle. For many students this moment is the point at which they either give up when faced with a challenge, or develop the skills needed to work through difficulties. In Visible Learning for Teachers (2012), John Hattie cites examples of self-regulation to include: “helping students to identify feedback themselves and how to self-evaluate, providing opportunities and awareness of the importance of deliberate practice and effort, and developing confidence to pursue the learning” (p. 134). When students can self-regulate the feedback process, they have a better understanding of the learning intentions and their proximity to the learning intentions’ success criteria.
Major Questions (Hattie, 2012, p. 130)
self levelThe final level of feedback falls directly into the praise category. While praise has the ability to provide comfort and support to students, it really does not provide focus to the task, process, or self-regulation (Hattie, 2012, p. 135). In fact, Hattie (2012) cautions that by mixing praise with feedback, the important learning related information is “diluted” and decreases the value of feedback (p. 135). While it is important to make students feel valued and respected, Hattie (2012) asserts that “if you wish to make a major difference to learning, leave praise out of feedback about learning” (p. 135). Therefore, it is advisable for teachers to carefully consider the time and place for praise, as it does create a positive classroom climate but can detract from desirable growth.
Major Questions (Hattie, 2012, p. 130)
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the importance of peers
Students are by nature highly sociable beings and the opportunity to tap into their potential for peer support is not to be ignored. However, educators must understand the strengths and weaknesses of peer feedback before fully engaging in this powerful model. Peers hold a great amount of influence over one another from both positive to negative effects, nevertheless, teachers can capitalize on the positive effects through intentional classroom culture design, and peer feedback protocols. Hattie (2012) recognizes this dilemma and suggest several ways to “help peers provide effective feedback” (p. 147). According to Hattie, some protocols to aid i peer feedback include: “guiding questions, sentence openers, or question stems that provide cues, hints, suggestions, and reminders to help students complete a task,” all of which can help promote “scaffolding and activation” for students (p. 147-148).
In Visible Learning for Teachers (2012), Hattie provides the following rubric as a guide for student peer feedback (p. 149).
In Visible Learning for Teachers (2012), Hattie provides the following rubric as a guide for student peer feedback (p. 149).
Embedded with prompts that drive students toward revision strategies, Hattie's (2012) rubric enables them “to draw connections, identify the learning gaps, and take corrective action” (p.149). Of course, it is essential that students be instructed on when and how to use the rubric. Hattie noted that with the correct supports and coaching, students experienced positive results when giving and receiving peer feedback, especially when operating within “the three major feedback levels, and associated prompts for each level” (p. 150). This is a powerful feedback strategy that can shift ownership of the learning process to a place of shared responsibility between teacher and students.
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