When giving verbal feedback during lessons, one useful area on which you can focus is learner thinking.
This means providing information learners can use to think differently, to change their thinking or to think in ways they were otherwise ignoring.
The common factor in all cases is that we are giving access to our expertise as a thinker and using this to shepherd and mould the thinking learners do.
Here are five techniques you can use.
‘I’d like you to think about X’
Here the teacher gives feedback that asks learners to think about something they have overlooked or ignored.
It can be delivered as a brief instruction or with additional information explaining why ‘X’ is worth thinking about and what the learner can expect to discover by pursuing this path.
For example, a science teacher might say to a learner: ‘I’d like you to think about the way the different surfaces affect the amount of friction. There might be a pattern there, waiting to be discovered.’
This encourages the learner to think about something they were otherwise ignoring – and the teacher knows that positive results are likely to ensue.
‘I’d like you to try thinking about it this way…’
In this formulation, the teacher gives the learner access to their expert thinking.
They know there is a better, or perhaps just a different, way of thinking about the subject, and so they encourage the learner to take that path.
For example, a philosophy teacher might say to a learner: ‘I’d like you to try thinking about justice in this way: Imagine that you didn’t have the capacity to think about consequences. How might your conception of the idea be different from what you think now?’
‘Try thinking about how X connects to Y.’
For example: ‘Try thinking about how probability connects to insurance.’
Or: ‘Try thinking about how Goldilocks connects to our local area.’
In both cases, the feedback is designed to get the learner making connections they might otherwise have missed.
This promotion of lateral thinking is easy for the teacher because of their expert knowledge. But it is harder for learners to achieve because of their more novice position.
Verbal feedback like this can open up ideas for learners and give access to ways of thinking that might otherwise have remained inaccessible.
‘Try thinking about this first, then that.’
If a learner is struggling to get to grips with a task or idea, it may be because their working memory is overloaded.
Too much new information can slow down a learner’s ability to process what’s in front of them.
Even to the point that they stop what they are doing and disengage completely.
You can make life easier for them by giving verbal feedback on their thinking using this formulation.
For example: ‘Try thinking about the key features of the landscape first, before deciding how you want to use colour.’
Or: ‘Try thinking about what you want to say first, then decide how you will say it.’
‘I’d like you to write down your thoughts and then refine them.’
This is a good way to help learners exert a higher degree of control over their thinking.
Writing thoughts down means externalising them and fixing them in time and space.
Having done this – having articulated what they are thinking – the learner can look critically at their thinking and decide how to refine it.
For example, a Year 6 teacher might ask a learner to write down their thoughts about a book they are reading, and then to refine these.
This contrasts with the learner holding the thoughts in their mind or attempting to put them directly into a piece of writing, without the additional step of articulation and refinement.
