Giving Effective Feedback

We all know how challenging it can be to give and receive even the best-intentioned feedback. Here are some hints to improve your feedback to students (and maybe they’ll work in your personal life, as well! J).

We took most of these hints from “Why Giving Effective Feedback is Trickier Than It Seems” by Katrina Schwartz, who draws much of her information from Susan Brookhart, author of How to Give Effective Feedback to Your Students.  You are welcome to read Schwartz’s blog, but if you are overwhelmed right now, you may want to read the Brooke/Bridget condensed version here J.

According to Schwartz, Brookhart, Brooke, and Bridget:

• Teachers must figure out what is worthy of feedback and when to give it.  This is also called finding the leverage point.  Too many teachers try to close EVERY gap in the student’s learning with one round of feedback. Instead, consider: What is the ONE change or strategy that will MOST greatly help the student to master the skill?  Focus on THAT skill or strategy, and you can add others later. 
• Imagine your supervising teacher telling you during student teaching ten things that you were doing wrong. You might have run as fast as possible away from a career in education.  Even worse, imagine your spouse giving you a list of ten behaviors you need to change!  

·      When evaluating  student work, descriptively praise the work’s strengths and then give 1-2 suggestions aligned with the learning target and success criteria.

•        Example: “Great use of evidence from multiple texts to support a solid claim.  How might you include more reasoning or elaboration to show your reader how your evidence supports your claim? For example, you could add some at the place I marked.” 

·        If a teacher gives feedback on aspects not aligned with the learning target, such as grammar errors on a science lab (not part of the rubric), then feedback becomes about pleasing the teacher and not about learning, according to Susan Brookhart.

o   While many of us can’t stand careless spelling or punctuation errors, if it’s not part of the rubric, it shouldn’t count against the student.  Save yourself valuable time and angst, and mark only rubric-related issues.

·       Give the feedback at a time when students can act immediately on it, not at the end of a unit or essay. Susan Brookhart says, “If they’re not going to be able to use it [feedback],” it’s a waste of time – yours and theirs.” However, delayed feedback can be useful if students are returning to the work to revise it. This extra review will help them to retain the information.

o   We always felt like teacher failures if we didn’t write extensive comments on summative assignments, but the truth is that most kids looked at the grade and either recycled or filed the assignment.  If the learning will continue, and students will revise or revisit, then give feedback, but if it’s a one-time assignment, just complete the rubric (even if you feel guilty).

·       Connect the feedback to an important future skill so that students care about it and understand how it might transfer.  Example: “Creating a stronger argument by considering counter-arguments will help you to ask for a new position or a raise at work, or ask your parents to drive you somewhere somewhere they don’t want to go!” 

o   Better yet, ask students how they see this skill transferring to the future—they may have even better examples.

·        Feedback such as, “Add more here” does little to help most students. It is better to provide sentence starters or meet with them to ask how they might add more. 

o   As an example, you could write, “Another concern is that…”

·        The best feedback is differentiated, as ALL students who struggle should also be held to high levels of thinking.  Sometimes we give lower-level feedback to lower-level students, which keeps them from growing.

o   Don’t fall into the trap of commenting on appearance or structure for your struggling students. Honor their thinking by commenting on it.

·       The ultimate goal of feedback is not only for the student to grow, but to help the teacher understand more about how the student is thinking. This allows the teacher to vary his/her instructional strategies to reach more students.

o   Giving the same repeated feedback quickly shows us that there is a common misconception we need to address (even if we've taught the concept brilliantly, but they somehow failed to learn it :-)).

·       Surveys of students show, according to Brookhart, that students want feedback they can use and the opportunity to use it.  The more practical and applicable, the better!

o   It’s kind of like teachers who say, “Give me a tip that I can use tomorrow in my classroom.”  Students also want immediately useful strategies for improvement.