Making Feedback Meaningful
From the desk of Carol C. . .
“We all need people who will give us feedback. That’s how we improve.”- Bill Gates
“Please help us serve you better. This survey will only take a few minutes, but it will tell us how to improve. Please give us your opinion.”
Everywhere we seem to be inundated with requests to provide feedback to companies. To be honest sometimes I do and sometimes I don’t. That said I think it’s important to let companies/people know what areas are working and what areas could be improved. It’s that way in our classrooms, too. Students need feedback whether it be academic or behavioral in order to learn or sustain gains.
By definition feedback is helpful information given to someone to improve a performance or product. So what can we do to make our feedback more productive?
Be specific. Whenever I’ve received feedback on something I’ve done, I want to know exactly what I’ve done well and how I need to improve. When cleaning out my mother’s house recently, I came across some papers I had written in college. I wondered why I kept them. When I looked through them I found my answer. The feedback while mostly positive was specific. I agree with you on this point. Your statements here confuse me. I see your thinking here. It says something about this professor’s feedback that I’ve kept these papers all these many years!
Choose which work needs written and which needs oral feedback. I base this decision on what I think will benefit my students the most. For example if I want my students to add more detail in their writing, I write a few questions in the area that needs to be expanded. How did you react when your brother hit you? What did he do next? On the other hand if I’m walking around the classroom while my students are working on math and notice a child is having trouble, I stop right then and talk him. He needs immediate feedback in order to understand the concept he’s working on.
Time is of the essence. Research shows feedback is most effective when it is immediate. When it’s given close to the time of the task, students perform better and show a greater understanding. I remember a time I had my fourth graders engage in written conversations with each other. Some were right on point while others missed it. I wrote comments on each paper. Then I let other tasks get in the way, and it was a week or so later before I got back to sharing my feedback. The blank look in the kids’ eyes told me I was wasting my breath. They had lost sight of the purpose of the assignment. Lesson learned on my part.
Give feedback with care. I keep in my head at all times that feedback is about guiding students in their work. It is not a final assessment or grade. It is information given to students to help them improve. I know firsthand that too much negative feedback keeps learners from pushing ahead. In Brownies one year my troop “sewed” receiving blankets for newborns. Each of my stitches were 2-3 inches long. My sweet leader came over and assured me that I knew how to make a whip stitch. Then she explained that the blanket held together best when the stitches were closer together. She asked me if I would like her to show me how. To this day I adore my Brownie leader. She boosted my confidence while still teaching me a skill.
Feedback needs to be based on a goal. I try to ask myself what I want my students to achieve and then center my comments around the progress they’re making in reaching that goal. We are constantly pushing our students toward a deeper comprehension of what they read. While I do ask them questions to assess and further their understanding, I try to point out the positives in their thought processes. “Your questions in literature circle today showed me you put a lot of thought into what you read. ” If I’m giving written feedback I write something like “Your writing here is clear and concise. I understand your point. In the next paragraph though, I’m not sure what you are trying to say. Ask yourself what you want your reader to take away from this section.” .
Maybe the most significant and lasting effect of specific, well chosen, caring, timely, and goal based feedback is that it makes students aware of their own learning. It teaches them to recognize their mistakes, analyze their thinking and come up with strategies which will strengthen their performance. In this way they learn to provide their own feedback. As Elon Musk says: “I think it’s very important to have a feedback loop, where you’re constantly thinking about what you’ve done and how you could be doing it better. I think that’s the single best piece of advice: constantly think about how you could be doing things better and questioning yourself.”