Creating the Environment for Progress - Part 4

This blog is Part 4 of 4.

You can access the other parts here:

Effective Feedback

We turn now to feedback.

If marking is the process, feedback is the content.

Marking is what we do. Feedback is what we give.

Formative Feedback

As noted in Part 3, formative feedback provides learners with much more information than summative feedback.

This information helps them to understand what they have done well and what they need to do to improve.

It opens up success criteria and gives learners the guidance they need to make progress.

In general, two or three strengths and one target is the preferred approach.

This is for two reasons.

First, a higher number of strengths makes it more likely learners will engage positively you’re your constructive criticism.

Second, one target is enough.

Any more and you are asking learners to divide their minds between multiple aims.

This diminishes their capacity to act effectively and means their efforts are spread thinly instead of being concentrated on one specific thing.

When learners have successfully implemented a target, set them another one.

But not until then.

Written Feedback

Feedback comes in different forms.

The two most common are written and verbal (with non-verbal being the third type).

Written feedback is nearly always a result of the teacher taking in learner work, marking it and returning it.

Here are a few pointers for making this as effective as possible.

Follow the advice given in Part 3.
Personalise the feedback by using the learner’s name. This is motivational, increases relevance and makes it more likely the learner will take the feedback seriously.
Write clearly. If learners cannot read your feedback, they will probably ignore it.
Give learners time to read your feedback, to think about it and to discuss it with you or with a partner.
Provide opportunities for learners to act on your feedback (for more on which, see below).

Verbal Feedback

Verbal feedback is mostly given during lessons, either to individuals, to groups or to the class as a whole.

It is most effective when it is clear, unambiguous and accompanied by illustrative examples or modelling.

During activities, it is generally a good idea to circulate through the room and provide verbal feedback wherever you deem it can help learners to make more progress.

Some examples include:

Helping learners to think differently about a particular idea
Stretching and challenging learner thinking
Indicating what is good about learners’ work and why
Indicating how the work could be improved and why this would be an improvement
Redirecting learners who have gone off task

An excellent differentiation technique involves trying to talk to every learner in your class at least once over the course of a lesson or a couple of lessons.

Doing this means providing tailored, verbal feedback to every learner, helping them to access the work and to make as much progress as possible.

Implementing Targets

We mentioned previously the importance of giving learners the opportunity to implement the targets you provide through your feedback.

If no such time is given, the feedback fails to achieve what it is intended to do.

Namely, help learners to make progress.

With verbal feedback, an opportunity for implementation normally arises naturally.

Learners can use your feedback as soon as you have finished talking and left them to continue with the activity.

When it comes to written feedback, however, you need to plan time in your lessons when implementation can take place.

Here are five examples of how to do this

Target Tracker Sheets

Stick a sheet into the front of learners’ books and ask them to record their targets in here.

At the start of the lesson, or at the start of relevant activities, ask learners to return to this sheet and to remind themselves of their current target.

They should then try to put this into practice.

Starter Implementation

As a starter activity, hand back the work you have marked, ask learners to read your feedback and then challenge them to select a section of their work and to redo it in accordance with the target you have set.

Write/Do/Reflect

Learners write their target at the top of a piece of work, complete the work while trying to implement their target, and then write a reflective paragraph at the end focussing on whether they have achieved their goal or not.

Mid-Lesson Reviews

Ask learners to remind themselves of their target at the start of the lesson.

Half-way through the lesson, draw proceedings to a halt and lead a mid-lesson review.

This should last around 3-5 minutes and should involve learners assessing to what extent they have successfully implemented their targets during the lesson – and what they intend to do about this in the time that remains.

Homework

Set learners homework tasks that focus on them implementing their targets.

While this relies on learners completing the homework, if done effectively it can have a significant impact on progress.

And with those final thoughts we draw things to a close.

Let me finish by sharing a selection of questions and activities you can use to reflect on the theme of progress and some of the specific ideas we have looked at across these four blogs.

Questions

What does progress mean to you? What does it look like for your learners? How will you know if learners have made the progress you want them to make?
If we plan and teach good lessons, mark regularly and provide relevant feedback, will progress take care of itself? Why?
Have I made too much of maximising progress? Are there other aims to which teachers should attend? Is privileging progress taking a mechanistic view of the job?
What sort of feedback have you received during your educational career? When was it helpful and when was it not? What lessons can you take away from this?
Is it always possible to elicit the information you want from learners, about their learning? Why?

Activities

Find a fellow trainee teacher – either from your course or in your training school. Give each other a topic and then plan an assessment activity the other could use. While this activity is tricky, and you might not produce something of great merit, the purpose is to get you thinking critically about the structure of assessment activities and what you need to include or focus on if you are to give learners the best opportunities to show the progress they have made.
Look through learners’ books when you are observing other teachers. Focus on the marking. Ask yourself what kind of feedback the teacher has given and the extent to which this helps learners to make progress. Then, talk to learners about the marking and ask them how easy they find it to implement the targets they are set.
Make a list of strengths and targets you think are common to your age-group or subject. You can then share these with learners (they are, after all, success criteria) and use them to help you mark more effectively (and more efficiently).