Book Blog

How to Give Effective Feedback to Your Students
By Susan M. Brookhart
Book review by Jacob K Hogan
Chapter 1 Feedback: An Overview
In chapter 1, the main focus of the chapter is on feedback that comes from the teacher to the student and is based on the student’s work. It also explores the concepts of formative assessment and the role that feedback plays in evaluating and encouraging student performance. Formative assessment provides information to both the teachers and the students about how students are doing relative to the goals of the class. It is mentioned that giving good feedback is a skill that teachers need to master as part of good formative assessment. The book reiterates that providing good feedback helps students learn to formulate new goals for themselves and a plan of action devised by the students to carry this new plan out and ultimately achieve their goals. The book goes on to say that addressing both cognitive and motivational factors acts in a “double-barreled” manner. The student is then able to process what information they need and then understand where they are in their learning while also thinking of what to do next to achieve their goal. Good feedback acts to stimulate the students thought process to attain their goal on their own without too much interference from the teacher; it acts essentially as a motivational tool to jumpstart their thought process in new directions with the ultimate goal of arriving at the correct answer.
For feedback to be a positive part of the learning experience, students need to see constructive criticism as a good thing and to also understand that learning cannot occur without practice. If the classroom culture is to always “get things right” then something that needs to be improved is seen as “wrong”. The chapter asserts that if the class culture values finding and using suggestions for improvement, students will be able to use feedback, plan and execute steps for improvement, and in the long run reach further than they could if they were stuck with assignments on which they could already get an A without any new learning. It is not fair to provide feedback and not give students a chance to use it. It is also not fair to the students to present them with what seems like constructive criticism and then use it against them in a grade or final evaluation.
What the research shows:
In early studies positive feedback was considered “positive reinforcement” and negative feedback was considered “punishment”. Both of these affect learning meaning feedback was theorized to be effective in practice. The conflict with this theory is that not all feedback is actually effective. Over the past 100 years of research, scholars have tried to determine what makes some feedback effective and some ineffective. The more recent research emphasizes the student’s role in the feedback process. What is now realized is that the message sent is filtered through the student’s perception (influenced by prior knowledge, experiences, motivation…etc) as it becomes the message ultimately received. In Butler and Winne’s research review, it showed that both external feedback (teacher feedback) and internal feedback (student self evaluation) affect student knowledge and beliefs. These two aspects together assist students with self regulation: which governs their next learning goals by using tactics and strategies used to reach these goals. The important thing to realize here is that teacher feedback is essentially input, that together with the students own internal input, will help the student realize where they are regarding their personal learning goals they want to achieve.
A meta-analysis was done by Kluger and DeNisi of studies of feedback. Their findings were very interesting in that the average effect of feedback intervention on performance was 0.41. This indicates that across all the studies the groups receiving feedback outperformed their control groups by .41 standard deviations or the equivalent of moving from the 50th to the 66th percentile on a standardized test. It is also interesting to consider that more than 38 percent of the effect sizes from the studies that went into the .41 average were negative. This means that the control groups outperformed feedback groups. It was ultimately determined that the effects of feedback depend on the nature of the said feedback. Through a lens of formative assessment based questions, it was then recognized of the importance of feedback in the formative process. Feedback can thus be determined to be the information that drives the process or sequentially halt the process.
Hattie and Timperley proposed a model about “feedback questions” which is composed of four levels: (1) feedback about the task (such as feedback about whether answers were right or wrong or directions to get more information), (2) feedback about the processing of the task (such as feedback about strategies used or strategies that could be used), (3) feedback about self-regulation (such as feedback about student self-evaluation or self-confidence), and (4) feedback about the student as a person (such as pronouncements that a student is "good" or "smart"). It was found that feedback regarding the quality of the work and also about the process of the work was most effective. Feedback that pulls the student’s attention to their self regulation strategies or to their individual abilities as learners can be very effective if students hear the feedback in a way that makes them realize they will get the results they want if they expand their effort and attention towards the task at hand.
Feedback strategies and Content
Figure 1.1 sums up the strategic choices for feedback while advocating comments for each based on the research. Figure 1.2 summarizes the kinds of choices you have about the content of your feedback and makes recommendations based on the research. The link is provided here http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/108019/chapters/Feedback@_An_Overview.aspx
Feedback and Grading:
Research has been done over the past 50 years regarding the effects of grades versus personal comments on student performance. In Page’s research it was found that student achievement was higher in groups receiving prespecified comments instead of letter grades and even higher for students whom received free comments written by the teacher indicating that writing comments was more conducive to learning than just giving letter grades. While in these early studies about comments, the feedback was evaluative or judgmental and not descriptive.
Bulter and Nisan investigated the effects of grades, comments, or no feedback. They used two tasks to be measured; quantitative and divergent-thinking tasks. Students whom received descriptive comments on their initial work performed better in both quantitative and divergent-thinking tasks the second time around while also displaying more motivation. The students who received grades the first time around performed well quantitatively but poorly on the divergent task on the final test. And finally students whom received no feedback performed poorly in both the second time around while also being less motivated. This means that the comments used were descriptive and provided more motivation on future work; it also provided interest in the task which is found in effective self-regulated learners.
Chapter 2: Types of Feedback and Their Purposes
This chapter basically touches on various feedback strategies like; timing, amount, mode, and audience. Timing consists of giving immediate or delayed feedback in which students can hear and use your input. For this to be effective, timing needs to occur in a window when the students are still mindful of the topic, assignment, or performance in question. The most important point is the feedback needs to come while the students still have a reason to work on the learning target. For effectiveness it is required that the teacher put themselves in the student’s place to determine the most effective timeline for feedback. Assignments need to be returned promptly i.e. the following day to enable the student to reflect on their mistakes while the material is still fresh. Providing immediate oral response to student misconceptions and questions of fact is a great example of good timing.
The amount of feedback is said to be the toughest to gauge effectively. For real learning to take place, the usable amount of information that students already know must be connected with their mistakes so that the feedback essentially allows them to move on to the next level. As a teacher you do not want to fix all of their mistakes but provide a conduit for them to get the point across. This requires deep knowledge of the following: 1) the topic in general and your learning target 2) developmental learning progressions for those topics 3) the individual students. The proper amount is referred to as the “goldilocks principle” meaning not too much and not too little.
The mode refers to written or oral feedback to the students. It is important to provide oral feedback if the student does not read well or the topics are very broad for the amount the students could read on the subject. This process involves utilizing a teachable moment for the students by providing comments on their work to better perform on what they already know the next time around. If teachers write too much or comments that students cannot interpret, the purpose of positive feedback is all but lost. Teachers need to be careful about how they deliver the mode and to what degree for this type of feedback to be effective.
Audience involves reaching out to the proper students with specific feedback. You want to communicate to each individual student to assure them that you care about their success. Each piece of feedback is tailored to each individual student; this requires a deep understanding of your student body to be able to pinpoint your comments in the appropriate context. This also works for groups of students struggling with the same problems. You can address the class as a whole to provide a group learning experience therefore utilizing time more efficiently.
Questions: How often should a teacher provide “extra credit” for assignments that are corrected based on instructor feedback? How can a teacher identify if a student sees positive reinforcement as them getting “wrong or incorrect answers” when we are trying to help them? What can a teacher do if they are running a class with 25 or more students, how can a teacher possibly contour their feedback to each individual student when there are so many to account for?