Can I be that little bit better at ......using methods to make feedbackstick?

In my previous post I looked at reasons why feedback might not stick.  It focused on whether it was the way in which we as teachers approached it, or was it simply the way that students perceived feedback that was the issue.  Whatever or however we approach it, we probably have methods that we use on a regular basis with students.  These methods are used day in day out and vary from subject to subject, student to student.  In the same theme as my last post, is it the methods that we use with students that causes feedback not to stick?  If we look at what the key principles from the last post are, can we design strategies in our lessons that are efficient for teachers as well as effective for students?

What makes a good method?

Now this isn't a criteria or a magic tick list that we should use every time we give feedback.  In fact there are lots of things that I haven't covered such as it needs to be timely, works best if its formative, targeted and regular (but we know this already).  Instead it is a list of common themes or important points that have stood out to me when reflecting on the feedback process that I hadn't fully considered before.  The practical methods that follow after try in some way use all, most or at least one of the key components that makes feedback effective.  So when we plan to give feedback to students, can we use these points (and those from my last post) to make the process have more impact?

Have we got a plan? - Before we give students feedback, do we know why we are giving it?  Do we know how we are giving it?  Do we have a plan?  If we are just using it as a tick box exercise then I'd urge you to think again.  Maybe the following cycles or flow chart will help you make a more effective plan for the feedback process.  The method you use can be as you see fit, but the core principles stay the same:

From top left: Diagrams by Tom Sherrington, David Fawcett, Shaun Allsion and David Didau

Be less work for you and more for students - Whatever method you choose should make more work for students to act upon it than it does for you providing it.  As Wiliam (2011) states "feedback should be more work for the recipient than the donor".  If you find that you're spending hours providing it for little or nothing to be done by students in return, I'd rethink the method you are using.

Feedback should cause thinking - Out of all of the reading, in all of the books, in all of the research papers and from all of the blog posts, the key message that has stuck with me about how I use feedback comes from Dylan Wiliam (2011):

"If I had to reduce all of the research on feedback into one simple overarching idea, at least for academic subjects in school, it would be this: feedback should cause thinking"

Now this is a simple and powerful message, but one I never thought of before.  For years I simply thought feedback was me telling students what they got wrong and what they should have done.  We know as adults how demoralising that must be if that is all we ever hear.  There were even times when I simply attached a grade or score, occasionally with a "check the marking criteria" added in for extra fun.  Now I have worked on my methods for a few years now in an effort to make them better.  But they still haven't involved students as best as they probably could.  And now with this simple Wiliam quote, I've probably been missing a trick.

When students receive feedback it should make them question or reflect about what they have just done.  It should force them to think about what they know and what gaps they still have.  It should force them to think about how to act upon the feedback in an effort to move their learning.  Did my previous comments and grade do that?  Definitely not.  So can future methods do this?  I'm confident they can.  So look at how you give feedback to your students.  If they can simply read it and dismiss it then it probably won't work.  If though it forces students to think, before taking future action, it is heading towards being a method that may just have a positive impact.

Do our methods answer the three questions - In Hattie and Timperley's paper titled  'The Power of Feedback', it was put forward that effective methods of feedback revolve around three key questions.  Now these three question crop up time and time again in other material.  But do I ever use them every time I give out feedback.  If you've never seen them before, the questions we should be addressing in feedback are:

• Where am I going?
• How am I going?
• Where to next?

In a summary, they also addressed these as:

• Feed up
• Feedback
• Feedforward

As Hattie points out in most of his literature, in an ideal environment, the comments we provide addresses these questions with the students.  The use of these questions in our structure ensures that we don't merely provide feedback, but instead link directly to the learning and then look forward in helping students make progress.

"Where am I going?" or feed up addresses the intention, goal or aim of the piece of work/learning.  As Black and Wiliam (1998) explained, “the provision of challenging assignments and extensive feedback lead to greater student engagement and higher achievement”.  It is therefore important for the feedback to have maximum effect, the goal is specific and challenging, with the task complexity low.  This goal may be the learning objective of the lesson, the core question of the task or even a target for which the student needs to work on (from previous feedback).  The important key component in this question though is we provide clear success criteria for meeting this aim.  Too often our comments are specific and accurate, but don't clearly link to the goal or learning taking place.  It is essential that we talk about this criteria so students can see where they are in the process and how far away they are from getting to the desired goal.

"How am I going?" or feedback provides reference to how that student is doing in relation to the goal or objective.  It's what we do most frequently and made up a lot of the comments I used to provide.  It is normally in this section that we highlight misconceptions or brilliant pieces of learning.  If we link it back to the previous question, this element can help show students where they are in their journey and what's been happening so far.

"Where to next?" or Feedforward - This last year was the biggest revelation in my teaching.  Why I hadn't used this word before I simply don't know.  As Hattie (2011) states "This feedforward question can have some of the most powerful impacts on learning".  A simple change in terminology with students can be a powerful thing.  When we talk about feedback, we are doing just that: looking back at what was.  This is a great starting point but students also need to know how to move forward.  This question ensures that we as teachers provide comments that help students take the next step in the learning process.  We've talked about the goal and where they are at, now we look at what is the next step to move this learning on.  It is vital here that we spend most of our time sharing this with students if we want them to progress.  As Sadler (1989) talks about in his work, it is this part of the feedback process that helps 'close the gap'.

So when we provide our comments to students, do we answer these three questions every time?  Maybe that is one of the reasons that it doesn't have the impact it should?

Less is more - As I talked about in my last post, sometimes the less we say has the most impact.  One thing that came up time and again in both literature and in my survey was that students struggle with a large amount of comments.  Too much feedback and the comments get ignored, give the impression the work must be bad or become too specific that the students doesn't know what to do with it.  Are our methods to much for our students to actually understand?

Will they do anything with it? - As I said in my last post, if students can't act upon the feedback to move the work or learning forward, you might not have bothered.  Students need the opportunity to both read and do something with your feedback.  It normally works best when students can act on it there and then.  Leave comments idle for lessons on end and the feedback loses its impact.  Two students in my survey specifically found that some teachers had given comments over 30 days ago and the students still hadn't improved that piece of work.  Now it's slipped from their memory and they can't remember the context it was in.  When giving feedback, ensure there is either an immediate opportunity for improvement, or one very soon.  Use a cycle as the basis for our methods is a really great reminder.  Do we always plan in time to do this?

Comments first! (Grades later) - Nothing more to really say on this.  As I detailed in my last post, as soon as we add grades or praise, the impact of feedback reduces and in some cases actually has a negative effect.  We need to break the grades culture or at least use them in a more constructive way.

Do our methods promote a Growth Mindset? - We need to ensure that the methods we use help students see that reading or listening to feedback is important, that mistakes are good for learning, that good habits can be learnt and should be repeated, and it's effort that is the key to making them improve.  John Tomsett has written a lovely post that encapsulates this message as a shift in culture here.  Some students really find feedback (and especially poor performance or mistakes) dents their self esteem and confidence.  So can we ensure we create a culture it our classroom that challenges these beliefs and make feedback an integral component of what happens in it?




Do what Ron does! - If you have never read 'An Ethic of Excellence' by Ron Berger, or have never seen one of his videos online, I would strongly urge you to do so.  Ron Berger's book explains how he gets students to create work of excellence using some very key principles.  I have blogged about it here.  What is fantastic about this is that everything that Ron does puts the role of feedback (in his method called critique) right at the heart of the learning in the classroom.  Students are set challenging tasks, break down examples of excellence, create success criteria together, use a drafting process, critique each others work (after being trained to do so) and seek this feedback from all sources automatically.  No one book has changed my thinking of the power of a feedback culture and its role in exceptional work.  Students are fully involved in the process and work continuously gets reviewed and improved.  The whole process of feedback becomes visible!  Do we create a culture in our classrooms using similar protocols that makes feedback and its power sing from every corner?  And neither have I yet (but I am seriously working on it!).

Key components from Berger. Do we create this?

The students do it all the time! - Another great book I would urge you to read is 'The Hidden Lives of Learners' by Graham Nuthall.  The book looks at learning from the perspectives of students and reveals a number of things we were probably unaware of.  One of the main points is that students receive 80% of the feedback they receive from their peers, and most of this is wrong.  So much peer feedback takes place beyond our control and we need to ensure that we train students up to give this effectively.  Unless all students work in silence for an entire lesson, they will always ask a friend or peer for help, advice, guidance or feedback.  We need to ensure that we involve students in the process and teach them exactly what high quality looks like and how to give it.  We also need to involve students in the process of feedback if they are to engage in it.  Too many times feedback can seem a one way process.  As Nuthall explains in his book, unless they are part of the process and it includes them throughout, we are more likely to get them to act upon feedback.  Do the methods we use train students to give high quality feedback?  Does it teach them to spot high quality feedback?  Do our methods involve students?

So what methods help feedback stick?

It's probably very important to say straight away that these methods are not my own.  They are ideas that have been discussed in department meetings, chatted about in the staffroom, read about on Twitter or seen mentioned in research/books.  Some were even suggested by students during my in-house survey.  They're purely on the list because they in some way attempt to bring together all three topics I've raised over the last two posts: the teacher, the student and the methods.  They aim to make the feedback we give stick and encourage the comments to be acted upon.  So can I get a little bit better at making feedback stick?

Critique – “Drafting and crafting”.  My ultimate favourite method which we can draw key principles of effective feedback from.  Even if you don't do the full process, there are so many principles we can extract and adapt.  Here is a link to my post specifically on this method.

What:

A process where students are trained to give very clear and concise feedback in order to create work of excellence.

How:

As students are working towards a piece of work, they create a number of drafts versions of it.  These drafts are ‘critiqued’ by peers and the feedback that each piece is given is acted upon in the next draft.  The comments that are given must be kind, specific and helpful.  They must also be instructional and help make the work better.  The teacher usually focuses on one aspect of the work at a time to make the process as beneficial as possible.  The process of critique normally requires a full dedicated lesson and comes in the form of a public critique or gallery critique.  Students need to have the process modelled, and getting students to critique the critique in the early stages helps ensure that they comments they provide to peers are of a high enough standard.

Why:

Critique goes beyond typical peer assessment.  It is part of the process.  It very clearly shows students how to give specific feedback that the person receiving it can go away and act upon.  It addresses the "85% of the feedback...." issue identified by Nuthall.  By dedicating a whole lesson and using a drafting process, a culture of feedback develops within the classroom.  The use of drafts also help students see the progress that is being made from 1^st draft to final piece.

DIRT time – Acting upon that feedback

What:

First made aware to many teachers by the amazing Jackie Beere, this method gives allocated time to getting students to read their feedback and actually act upon it.

How:

Plan time within lessons or schemes where students act upon the comments and feedback that they receive.  This can come in the form or a starter activity, end of a lesson task or a dedicated lesson during a scheme.  In this time, students revisit feedback that they have been given and have that time to actually act upon it with the help of peers, teachers and resources.

Why:

Providing feedback in books can easily be forgotten about or simply not acted upon.  By creating dedicated time in lessons where students have to act upon it, the gap between where they are and where they should be can be closed.

Find and Fix – Getting students to think about their work (A Dylan Wiliam idea)

What:

Place a dot or mark in the margin of a piece of work near where a mistake is. Students have to locate the error independently.

How:

When marking a piece of work, place a symbol, dot or mark in the margin next to where a mistake has taken place.  At the end of the work, explain that there are x number of mistakes.  Don't indicate what these mistakes may be.  Students then have to 'find' and 'fix' them.  You can add a focus to the process.  For example, you could explain that the feedback focus is on SPaG and ask students to find and fix the x number of mistakes in their work.

Why:

The process involves students thinking about the work they are doing.  This is ideal for minor issues which can easily be found and fixed.  The method also means that students can quickly amend work themselves.  It is also time efficient for teachers.

Closing the gap lessons – Moving from where you are to where you should be

What:

A dedicated lesson or lessons at the start of a new unit that allow students to ‘tidy up their understanding’ from a previous unit.

How:

This is used in our department a lot.  At the end of a unit we carry out a unit test.  The two lessons after this (and prior to the next unit), students analyse how their understanding (from test results, homework….) and revisit weak topics once more.  Whilst doing this they act upon any feedback that they were given, improve their notes, redraft any work that they underperformed in, create concept maps or revision resources, answer exam questions and so on.  The aim is to then make that topic an area of strength.  Students try and improve at least two weak areas in this time.

Why:

Too often we finish a unit and move onto the next without ensuring students are confident in it.  Providing this structured time with well thought out tasks allows students to close the gap from where they were, to where they should have been.  Learning is reinforced and improve.

Closing the gap theme park writing from davidfawcett27

            An example of a 'Closing the Gap' lesson from English

Burning questions/requests – Can you check this for me?

What:

When students submit a piece of work, they have the opportunity to request a specific part is given closer inspection.

How:

When a piece of work is handed in, the student very clearly highlights on it a part of it that they didn’t quite understand.  This is not related to the task, but instead to the content.  If for instance they are still unsure about the functions of the skeleton during a physiology unit, they simply highlight that section in their work.  The teacher can then mark the other parts using a marking key, and then give specific time to the piece of understanding that the student is struggling with.  This section gets constructive comments and suggestions for moving the learning forward and hopefully ‘close the gap’.

Why:

Giving students that sense of ownership and responsibility engages them in the process.  They are highlighting a part of your subject that they are still not quite clear on and requesting some help with moving it forward.  This involvement means that the comments you give will have a higher chance of being acted upon.

Feedback key – Focusing your feedback

What:

A feedback key that all students are familiar with and used when marking pieces of work.

How:

Create a marking key and give students a copy to stick in their books.  The codes on this key could include B.O.D (Benefit of doubt), T.V (Too vague) or double ticks for very well answered pieces.  When marking work, leave the codes throughout the work where needed.  Students then check the codes upon receiving their work back and know what needs work (lack of detail etc).  The code means that students will have to think about what needs improving, and it is this thinking which will help progress learning further.  If they need more clarity over why they have a code they can come and seek further feedback.

Why:

This makes marking quicker on you as a teacher.  Also as Dylan Wiliam says, feedback should provoke thought.  This method highlights to the student areas where knowledge is competent, and areas where knowledge is lacking.  Students work out where the error is and can correct it.  The key is quick to use and provides you with time to actually write constructive comments where a student needs it most, rather than having to scribble all over a piece of work.  Less is more.

Feedback homework – DIRT time at home

What:

Students collect a 'homework task' that is specific to a common misconception they have demonstrated in a piece of work.  

How:

Although feedback should be specific to that individual, there are times when a few different common errors throughout the class have taken place.  For the first part of the homework, students have to act on feedback that was personalised and specific to them.  For the second part, students also have to collect a 'feedback homework' task sheet from you.  Each task is different and relates to one of the common errors demonstrated in the pieces of work.  Students simply pick up the relevant task in relation to their feedback.

Why:

As well as specific feedback for every child, there are also some common mistakes that come up.  This encourages students to work on this feedback task at home, addressing the error/gap and improving the work that they submitted.  It is also efficient for the teacher.



Feedback questions – Doing something with your comments?

What:

A Dylan Wiliam idea - Give students questions as feedback to tackle misconceptions.

How:

Read through students work and place numbers against misconceptions.  The number links to questions posed by the teacher at the end of the piece of work.  Students have to respond to the questions and demonstrate that they have understood the information.

Why:

By asking questions students have to think about the error that they made.  By using questions students have to engage with the feedback and act upon it.

Triple impact marking – You, me, you

What:

Provide feedback to students.  They then provide feedback back to your comments.  You provide feedback again.

How:

Read students work and provide feedback where necessary.  Students then read the comments, react to them by writing their own comment and course of action (how they will improve).  They then improve and you then feedback on the work again, seeing if they have undertaken the steps they had identified.

Why:

Engages in a dialogue of feedback where the students must act upon your comments, and plan steps to improve.

Feedforward as a starting point – Using feedback as in future learning 

What:

Use previous feedback/feedforward as starting target for new work.

How:

Very obvious but actively get students to write their previous feedforward targets on new work.  Students therefore have the deficit from the last piece of work visible and in their mind when working on their new piece.

Why:

Students can easily forget or ignore feedback.  The same mistakes seem to keep creeping up again and again, making you wonder whether they have read the comments at all.  By having them as the starting point of the next piece, it is a clear criteria for which students work towards in their new piece.

Using grades/data – Using summative assessment and quantitative data effectively

What:

Using grades, test data and scores with students as a form of feedback to help close the gap.

How:

Break down a piece of work, coursework or test.  Display the separate components of the work in the form of a spreadsheet on the board and get students to pick the areas that they have answered poorly and they must act upon those areas.  Combine it with a 'Closing the gap' lesson or DIRT time to make it have more impact.  Use mark schemes to support where necessary.

Why:

Giving grades or test scores can be detrimental to feedback.  Going through an exam paper question by question can be quite laborious.  This method gives students an overview of each question and each sub section of it in one quick image.  Topics are colour co-ordinated so spotting patterns in weaknesses is easy to do.  With a break down of the marks, students can also see how far away they were from achieving the correct response.  Promotes responsibility and ownership as students identify areas themselves.

Modelling and examples – Showing what to aim for

What:

When providing feedback, use a model or example of excellence to help students reference what they need to be doing.

How:

When you are going over the main misconceptions (or even positives) of a piece of work or learning, use a model or example of excellence with the students.  This helps them understand and visualise what quality their work should be aiming for.

Why:

Students find that they have great feedback from teachers but they can't translate that into a mental image of what their work/learning should be.  Showing an example helps scaffold what the next steps actually look like and are more likely to get students to act upon the feedback.

Now these methods should be adapted and tweaked to suit the needs of your students.  Ultimately though, they encourage feedback to be acted upon, and hit many of the concerns and issues with the teacher approaches, students perceptions and pitfalls in methods I have identified.  If you haven't done so already, I would really encourage you to read my previous post to understand the student and teacher factors in this process.  So, knowing all of this now, can we be that little bit better at providing feedback methods that stick?

This is being submitted as part of Octobers #blogsync. Read the other entries here: http://blogsync.edutronic.net/

Links

My previous feedback posts: http://reflectionsofmyteaching.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Feedback

Creating a culture of critique - My favorite method of providing feedback (also full of links) http://reflectionsofmyteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/creating-culture-of-critique.html

My #TLT13 and ResearchEd presentation on making feedback stick http://prezi.com/cy5bd7p2k1gl/making-feedback-stick/

My #TMSoton Making Feedback Stick presentation http://www.slideshare.net/davidfawcett27/feedback-23968730

Some excellent articles from numerous bloggers on Feedback collated via Edssential http://edssential.co.uk/feedback/

Some excellent articles from numerous bloggers on Marking collated via Edssential http://edssential.co.uk/marking/

Can I be that little bit better at......understanding why feedbackdoesn't stick?

The feedback goblin

There is no doubting that feedback is one of the most important key components of teaching.  We use it every day, in various forms and in response to various situations.  If used well it can have such an impact on the learning of students.  In fact according to Hattie, if used as effectively as possible, it can have an effect size of d=0.79 which is twice the average impact of other classroom methods.  But that statement itself has one key problem: "if used as effectively as possible".  Unfortunately, as Hattie (2012) states:

"Feedback is among the most common features of successful teaching and learning.  But there is an enigma: while feedback is among the most powerful moderators of learning, its effects are among the most variable" 

So why is the impact of feedback so varied?  Why is it that sometimes when we provide detailed feedback about a piece of work or learning, this piece never improves?  Why is it also the problem that after meticulously providing feedback for students in an effort to move learning forward, this feedback is never acted upon?  Why is it that after providing high quality feedback, students still don't know what to do to make that work better?  There is clearly a chink in the system and identifying it in our own teaching, and then addressing it, can ensure most of our effort is not wasted.  Surely there are simple ways to tweak what we as teachers do to make feedback work better, stick more, empower students and actually make them act upon it.  Well as usual there aren't any miracle cures.  How we give feedback in one lesson may not not suit the next.  How we provide feedback to one student in a class may not be helpful to the person sitting next to them.  The art of providing feedback is a large task to master.  In fact I'm not sure that I will personally ever master it and that gremlin may remain!  However, if we think about what feedback is, what it includes and who is involved in the process, can we get that little bit better at using it?

So what is feedback?

Feedback itself doesn't have one universal definition.  Of the many great attempts to define it there are a few that personally resonate with me:

"the process used by teachers and students to recognise and respond to student learning in order to enhance that learning, during the learning"   Cowie, Bronwen, Bell, Beverley (1999)

"feedback aims to reduce the gap between where the student 'is' and where he or she is meant to be"  Sadler (1989)

The process of is simple at first glance but making as effective as possible requires a lot more thought.  At its most basic is is the simple provision of information about performance, learning or understanding.  At its best it can resemble a map, providing clear references of where we have been, where we are, where we are going and what the immediate landscape may be like as students continue on with their journey.  Its form can come in many ways using both verbal and written methods.  Any provision of feedback by a teacher or even a peer is aimed at helping that individual move the learning process forward.  We use it numerous times in a lesson and it impacts many of our students.  Usually (as stated by both Wiliam and Hattie) it uses a strong goal or learning intention, combined with clear success criteria, as a means to reference feedback to.  This is vital as students need to use this feedback to see what the aim is and how to get there.  When there is clarity in the task or learning taking place, the power of the feedback is improved.  Over the years many educators and teachers across the globe have developed methods and means of providing feedback to students which they find works.  The key though is making the way we use this notion of feedback to have as much impact as possible.  If we can find ways to increase the potential  of feedback, we increase the learning potential of our students.

The problem is though, in both my own teaching and in the teaching of others, I have had so many conversations about how feedback simply isn't sticking with students.  It's not surprising when its's claimed that 70% of the feedback we give is not received by students. In some cases fellow teachers have even questioned whether it is worth the time and effort providing it if it is never read or used.  But I still believe it is.  I don't think that feedback should be written off.  In fact I think it deserves even more attention and investigation.  There has to be reasons or triggers within the process that can be tweaked or improved.  But the process isn't simple itself.  It involves us as educators reflecting on three things:

1. Teacher - how we approach and use feedback
2. The methods - that we choose to use
3. Students - perceptions, views and making it work.

The teacher - our approach and use of feedback

I haven't met many teachers who don't value the importance of feedback.  A few question its effectiveness but I am pretty confident that even they dedicate a lot of their teaching to providing it.  But could it be our approach as teachers that is causing the whole process to lose its effectiveness?  Are our views on its part in learning as clear as they should be?  Do we set it up in a way that means it has maximum impact?  Are we getting students to value the process so that they engage with it?  All of these things are components that we as teachers have control over and can change.  So what could be tweaked (especially in my own teaching)?  Well here's a few areas we as teachers could focus on:

Feedback is not the end of the line - There are times if we are not careful that feedback itself becomes the end product of a piece of work.  It becomes the final thing that we do as teachers when the learning process is over.  How many times over the years have I asked students to submit a piece of work which I then write the only piece of feedback on it.  How many times have student handed in homework and received a comment which then is never subsequently acted upon?  Over time students believe that this is when feedback occurs - when learning is done.  It becomes the end of the line, the final stop and time for students to depart this journey and begin a new one.  With no action its like the students have slept most of the way.  This summative method of providing feedback is the first stumbling point in the whole process.  By providing feedback only at the end of learning, students do not have an opportunity to act on it.  Instead we should be providing feedback that moves the learning forward (Wiliam, 2011).  Feedback that provides a recipe for future action (Wiliam, 2011).  Feedback should be part of the process of learning and not simply the final statement on students work.  Students should receive this during learning and at times when they need it most.  It should form a continued dialogue for which we can see the process of learning evolve.  What this continued and responsive approach also provides is an opportunity for us to plan in deliberate practice which students can engage in to move this learning forward.  All of a sudden this 'end point' feedback feels very redundant and may be the first crack in the system.

When - When to provide feedback is almost as important as how we provide feedback.  Hattie (2012) states that feedback should be "Just in time, just for me, just for where I am in the learning process and just what I need to help me move forward".  As we have just talked about, feedback should be a clear part of the learning process and one that can be used to make subsequent improvements and progress.  Little and often is a sound rule of thumb.  It requires nothing more that gut instinct and knowing your students.  As teachers we should be creating opportunities to feedback during the learning process and this usually occurs when students are stuck.  This timing can ensure that students get back on track and progress forward.  But (and there's always a but), we can get this timely terribly wrong.  If we leave our intervening and provision of feedback too long, students could give up or become off task.  Getting to all of those students effectively and quickly who may be stuck is difficult and one I know I need to reflect on how to manage this better.  But there is an even bigger point to highlight.  Hattie points out that feedback can only build on something: it is of little use when there is no initial learning or surface information.  And so?  Well there are times when I set students off on a task.  They work and the class is silent for a minute or two.  Then what sets in is the 'surely I should be doing something and helping students' default mode.  If I'm not doing something then I mustn't be doing my job. And heaven knows what someone would think if they walked into my lesson and I'm not looking busy.  But jumping in and giving students feedback straight away isn't the key.  As Wiliam points out about the timing of feedback:

"If it is given too early, before students have had a chance to work on a problem, then they will learn less".

So resisting that urge and allowing learning to take place is so vital.  They need to understand what it is they might need feedback on before I actually give it.  Allowing the class to work isn't being lazy, it's giving students the opportunity to learn, and work out what they don't know.  But then again there are also times when we set a task and immediately have a student saying they're stuck.  In this instance the principle is the same.  Instead of providing feedback or giving them the answer, provide further instruction.  They need to learn before feedback is provided.  So with that in mind, is it our timing of feedback that is a reason it doesn't stick?

Marking policy or feedback policy? - This to an extent is probably out of the control of a classroom teacher.  Many schools create a policy and implements it out across the various departments.  Many highlight the expected frequency of marking, the types of comments, methods of feedback provision and much more.  The problem is that we should be shifting from a marking policy to a feedback policy.  Why?  Alex Quigley provides reasons much better than I ever can here.  For many reasons a marking policy can be seen as a strict code of practice that all must follow to ensure that books are uniformed and up to date.  A marking policy can also be seen as simply providing marks which are usually the indicator of an endpoint.  A flick and tick exercise in the worst case.  Instead a 'feedback policy' can help change the mindset of staff and recognise the continuous methods of formative assessment (written or oral) that is given numerous times within a lesson.  It also forces staff to think that providing comments is not the end of the process, but should be part of the process for which students need to interact with.  Tom Sherrington in his post here explains how Saffron Walden County High School have adopted something similar but takes it a step further.  The school has a generic cycle which all staff must follow.  The unique feature though is that each department tailor makes the cycle to fit in to their subject specific context.  What you see in Maths is different from Art but is driven by the same cycle and its principles.  This prompted me to create this cycle for my own purposes.

In its simplicity it all revolves around learning.  The cycle allows me to plan feedback into my lessons as well as use methods/strategies that tick all of the features.  The key areas to focus on in this though is the provision of feedback and feedforward, the time to allow this to be acted upon, and the opportunity to re-assess and ascertain whether the gap has actually been closed.  Could a department or whole school policy be formed on the basis of feedback using a similar cycle?  If that's beyond our influence, can we use something similar to ensure that we create our own personal feedback policy that ensures these key principles are used all of the time?  Simply using it as a basis in our lessons ensures that we as teachers pay more attention to the feedback provision we give.

What we say - Thinking about every single comment that we pass to students as a form of feedback can be quite a challenging task.  There are times when we have the best intentions about providing feedback in a certain way.  Occasionally though, we may say things or pass feedback that actually isn't as helpful as it could of been.  These are the times when what we say probably has the biggest impact as a teacher for how the feedback is received.  So what things should we think about?  The next few points address this:

Faulty interpretations - There are times when providing feedback to a student may not be beneficial at all.  Hattie in his 2007 paper explains that feedback:

"is most powerful when it addresses faulty interpretations, not a total lack of understanding. Under the latter circumstance, it may even be threatening to a student: “If the material studied is unfamiliar or abstruse, providing feedback should have little effect on criterion performance, since there is no way to relate the new information to what is already known” (Kulhavy, 1977, p. 220)."

Hattie explains that students who are really struggling with understanding will not benefit at all when we try to intervene with feedback.  He advises that at a stage like this it is probably more beneficial to provide further instruction, additional explanations or clarity through an example.  Now this shift is easier to do when we are working face to face with students and providing oral feedback.  But on pieces of classwork or even home learning, the comments that we give can have a limited effect.  It also becomes quite a large task to provide clear enough instruction for students in written format.  It's simply easier to tell them face to face.  So when students are really struggling in this setting, instruction and not feedback is vital.  Knowing this, can we tweak the comments we give on these pieces of work, or even arrange time set aside to act on this in person?



Whole class feedback - Now I have been guilty of this a lot.  There are times when after observing the class or speaking to a few individuals we make an address to all students.  Our intentions are honorable as we seek to share a common misconception or error with everyone.  The problem is that most of this feedback misses our students as they are unsure or unaware of who this feedback is actually being directed to.  If nobody knows who it is for then who is actually receiving it?  As time efficient and as well intended as this is, simply providing feedback on such a large scale loses its overall effectiveness and becomes a method that has low impact.  Targeting specific individuals or working with small groups is a more beneficial strategy.  Can we as teachers be more mindful of this in the future?

Giving and receiving - David Carless in 2006 wrote a paper titled 'Differing perceptions in the feedback process'.  I will refer to this a lot more later on but a startling number of facts from his research emerged.  Again it centers around the efficiency of the feedback that we provide.  In his study, he found that 70% of teachers claimed that the feedback that they gave was detailed enough for students to use.  Unfortunately only 45% of students agreed that feedback was of this standard.  This is quite startling and if it is similar across all classrooms, that is a lot of wasted feedback which is simply not hitting home.  So as an educator is there a way that we can make these percentages align?  Well using advice from Carless, Hattie and Wiliam, there are a few things that we can do to improve the impact.  One is to address the complexity of our feedback.  Carless noticed that on a number of occasions, students found the comments of the teacher too confusing, too detailed or too specific to that task.  Dylan Wiliam also confirms this and states that sometimes less is more in terms of what we say/give.  The feedback we are providing should be helpful to the learner in making future improvements.  Unfortunately we sometimes provide feedback that is very accurate and specific, but this simply makes students unsure of what they need to do to progress or work on.

Carless also makes the point that sometimes this feedback is too task specific and is not seen as transferable to future learning.  Instead of addressing specifics that may not be revisited in the future, look at generic skills such as 'how effective students are referencing evidence' as a basis instead.  This is something that can be used repeatedly and more frequently in future tasks.

Finally, interpretation of grading or assessment criteria can also be too specific.  These can sometimes be extremely detailed and long winded.  Students can find the terminology and differences between boundaries confusing.  As teachers are we able to break this down into more manageable chunks which students can access and reference more easily?

Praise or no praise? - I feel that this may cause the most debate.  This is also an area that I had the most discussion with colleagues at school about.  Praise is a tough thing to isolate when giving feedback.  We sometimes do it automatically.  I know that I use "Well done....." or similar praise comments when talking about students work.  But the giving of praise can actually be detrimental when trying to provide feedback.  Praise on its own has very little impact as it provides no constructive instruction to the learning or task.  Mixing praise with other comments can also reduce the impact of feedback.  As Butler (1988) found out, 'feedback through comments alone led to learning gains, whereas marks alone or comments accompanied by marks or giving praise did not.'  It seems that the giving of praise redirects the attention of the student and actually distracts them from the comments that they are receiving.  So what are some of the pitfalls that research suggests we fall into?  Well it is suggested most praise is normally directed towards the student themselves.  It comes in the form of comments like "Good girl" or "Great piece of work from a great student".  This is difficult for the student to reference or take control of.  It also fails to tell them what to do with the work or even acknowledge gaps in learning?  Hattie (2011) identifies that student orientated praise also affects their self perceptions.  Some will want to be seen as a good student, others will want to avoid being a good student because praise is present in the classroom.  Another issue is we usually praise underachieving or struggling students more.  This can ultimately lead to praise being given out when it isn't really deserved, or even worse, that praise being seen as false so future praise has even less impact.

But wait a moment, are you saying we shouldn't give praise?  Not at all, instead we need to turn to the work of Dweck.  As Wiliam (2011) states:

"It is also essential that praise is related to factors within an individual's control, so praising a gifted student for simply being gifted is likely to lead to negative consequences in the long term (Dweck, 2006)"

Hattie (2011) also agrees with this by saying that:

"praise directed to the effort, self-regulation, engagement, or processes relating to the task and its performance (e.g., “You’re really great because you have diligently completed this task by applying this concept”). This latter type of praise can assist in enhancing self-efficacy and thus can be converted by students back into impact on the task, and hence the effects are much greater."

So what does this mean?  In a nutshell, most research says that if we give praise we should be directing it to variables that students have control over.  These are things such as effort or process.  By issuing praise and attributing to how hard a student has worked ("It's really great to see how much effort you have put in") or the way in which they have done it ("A really fantastic way in which you have structured your....") means that the student can do something about it.  They have control over the amount of effort they put into future tasks.  They also have control over the strategy, method or way in which they complete a task.  So can we as teachers change the way we use praise?

Grades or no grades - Again this is a very difficult discussion to have.  Our education system is built up on the notion of grades, however as a form of feedback they have no effect and in some cases make the learning worse.  Giving grades to students has shown to cause no improvements in subsequent work.  To many, as soon as students get a grade, the learning stops (Kohn, 1994).  It is seen as the end of that particular learning process.  We therefore need to think very hard about how we use them.  Dylan Wiliam dedicates a whole section to the use of grades in feedback.  In numerous research studies around the use of feedback with students, grades on their own or combined with comments have no impact on learning.  Even when you combine them with comments I hear you say?  As Wiliam points out:

"Most teachers, therefore, are surprised to learn that the effect of giving both scores and comments was the same as the effect of giving scores alone.  Far from producing the best effects of both kinds of feedback, giving scores alongside the comments completely washed out the beneficial effects of the comments"

Wiliam points out in this situation the teacher might as well just give the grades on their own as the students won't learn anything and it will save teachers a lot of time.  There are three obvious reasons why grades aren't helpful.  First of all they provide no constructive feedback.  Giving a student a grade doesn't indicate what was achieved and what gaps still need closing.  Secondly, a grade focuses students attention away from any comments.  Some students seem hooked on them and ultimately want to know how well they achieved, sacrificing the urge to improve.  Thirdly, grades feed fixed mindset students.  How many times do we give out grades only for the following thing to happen - students compare with their peers.  All of a sudden the opportunity for moving forward is restricted as students look for social status.  As is the suggestion from numerous pieces of research, constructive comments are much more beneficial to learning than grades.

But hang on, we need to give grades so can we make their use better?  Well yes we can.  I will explain methods of using grades as a form of feedback in my next post.  In a sneak preview, if we break down what a grade means and use it as a criteria for success, a grade can be tweaked to be quite a beneficial method fo feedback to share with students.  It just takes some thought.  So can we step away from grades if possible, or even use them more constructively to improve the impact of feedback?

The students - perceptions, views and making it work for them

In both my #TLT13 and ResearchEd presentation, I saved my focus of students to the end.  Simply because what we do and the methods we use are under our control.  How our students react or engage with feedback is not.  We can set up the best systems and use the best methods, but if a student does not do anything with the feedback, the system fails.  In fact during my session a number of people discussed exactly this point.  One delegate explained what on paper was a fantastic method of providing feedback.  Unfortunately the student response was rarely as high as they expected.

As well as consulting the books and research papers, I conducted an in house survey of 100 students from Year 7 through to Year 11.  The questionnaire I used can be found here. I will refer to this at certain times although my findings were almost exactly the same as what researchers were already saying.  What is listed on the image below are the numerous reasons that students said feedback didn't work for them.

So why doesn't feedback stick with students?  As I stated earlier, it is claimed that 70% of feedback is not received by students.  This is a pretty low return rate for something we know has so much impact if used well.  So what is going on in our feedback process?  Why is it that sometimes students just don't engage or do anything with the feedback we give them?

Oral feedback - In my school survey this issue came up a lot.  Students commented quite a lot on how they preferred oral feedback as it was given specifically to them in a face to face situation.  Students were able to ask questions and seek clarity if needed.  However, many students said although they liked this, there were frequent times when the teachers moved on to speak to another student and they instantly forgot what was said to them.  There are other considerations with oral feedback as well.  Carless (2006) indicated that "whilst tutors may view oral comments as feedback, students may not recognise this form of feedback as much as written comments".  Maybe what we tell students doesn't sink in because if it isn't on paper students aren't sure if it is simply a conversation or a suggestion.  They may miss that it was actually feedback designed to help them improve.  So can we design a process where we can use oral feedback to explain, whilst reinforcing it in written form?

Too much feedback on work = work must be bad - This is a common theme with students.  "If there's a lot of writing on my work it must be bad and I therefore don't read it".  Now this is a common mistake.  Sometimes students need to have detailed feedback but it seems that some students ignore feedback if they see a lot of it on a page.  It seems that they buy into a culture that only poor work receives mass feedback where as good work receives minimal (sometimes only a grade).  In Dylan Wiliam's book Embedded Formative Assessment, he talks about a student conversation in which a girl says "When you get a lot of feedback on your work, it means it wasn't very good".  As the explanation went on, the girl indicated that good work receives a high grade and a little comment like "Good job", whereas less successful work is returned to the students with lots of annotations from the teacher.  As Wiliam states, "To this girl, the more "feedback" you got, the worse your work must have been".  As he points out, used in this way "feedback really is punishment".  So is our helpfulness and good intentions the reason why students ignore our comments?

Peer feedback - In Nuthall's book 'The Hidden Lives of Learners', it is claimed that 85% of the feedback that students receive is from their peers, yet most of this is incorrect (also referenced in Visible Learning, Hattie 2009).  At first I didn't believe this and thought the numbers were out, but actually observing this in the classroom, you see that students ask each other for help or direction far more than they ask you.  How many times do you see individuals checking with each other, or asking each other questions or using a partner when they get stuck?  The problem as Nuthall points out though is this information is usually wrong.  In my survey I found some students gave an answer to their peers just to shut them up.  In Nuthall's book he points out how some students have the best intentions but again give wrong information.  The question here then is, if we know this is going on, surely we need to dedicate time to teach students how to give effective feedback in the first place.  Is this a reason that learning doesn't improve?  Feedback outside our control is given, but it's usually wrong?

How good teachers feedback actually is - I've talked about this before but it seems that students perceive the quality of feedback differently than we do.  With our best intentions, in our eyes, the feedback we provide we believe is helpful.  In a study by Carless (2006), he found that tutors perceived their feedback more positively than students did.  There was a huge gap though with students perceptions though.  For example, Carless found that 38.4% of the teachers in his study thought they gave detailed feedback to students, where as only 10.6% thought they did.  Now it is important to note that his study was in FE but do we think the feedback we give is helpful?  As Hattie and Wiliam point out, sometimes our feedback is too detailed, too specific, to confusing and doesn't move the learning forward.  We need to ensure that we use little and often, focusing on key steps to move the learning forward, referencing it as much as possible to the aims and criteria of the learning.  What we give should act like a map or even scaffold the process further.  Do we do this enough though?

Ability and the fear of error - It seems from the study by Carless (2006) that students of a higher ability were more receptive to feedback.  This was because of their greater confidence and better understanding of both the learning, and what good performance entails.  However, with less able students, feedback carries the risk of being discouraging and misunderstood.  As Carless states "An ability to provide pertinent feedback that does not impact negatively on student egos seems to be a useful skill for tutors to develop".  Now this all works on the self belief of a student and ties in very closely with my next point about the work of Carole Dweck.  Whilst more able have the ability to act upon feedback, do the less able have the capability to work with it as effectively?  Do we differentiate what we say to different students in our class or is it a one size fits all model ?  I know I need to think hard about this.

Dweck's work also links to this issue.  Of her research, Dweck found that students could roughly be split into two types: fixed learners or growth learners.  Growth learners thrive on challenge and see mistakes as a process to learn from.  However, fixed mindset learners worry about errors as an attack on their intelligence and ability therefore are less receptive to it.  These fixed learners aren't just the less able students in the class who attribute poor work for not being very bright.  It can also be the highest achievers whose status in the classroom is equally under threat from feedback, failures, errors and mistakes.  As a teacher, do we work to shift these students to become more growth orientated?  We do this through helping them see that "by working, you are getting smarter" (Wiliam, 2011).  With these students we need to give feedback on things under their control and not attributed to intelligence.  These are things such as effort and the process of which students have worked.  But as teachers do we do this?  Do we get these fixed learners to embrace feedback and learn from mistakes?  If not then it's no surprise that these students don't engage with it.

Teachers give too much feedback - As simple as it sounds (and I have mentioned this in various forms throughout) "In giving feedback, less is often more" (Wiliam, 2011).  Again, sometimes our best intentions, the amount of feedback that we give can be too detailed, too confusing and of moderate quality.  If we refine what we say and focus on a few points, the impact of feedback with students improves.

We don't do anything with the feedback - As I stated in the teacher section, a number of students, especially in my own survey, found that feedback was given but there were no opportunities to follow it up.  This completely devalues the effectiveness of it and over time, students become desensitised to it.  Why would they ever read feedback if there was never an opportunity to act on it?  It becomes a redundant task.  Feedback should be part of the learning process and embedded in a culture of the classroom.  If we don't value it then students won't either.

The feedback I get focuses on what I've done wrong, not what I need to do to improve - It's really easy, especially with a marking policy, to purely focus on what students have got wrong rather than what they need to do to make work/learning better.  Wiliam (2011) talks about how this type of feedback is "rather like the scene in the rearview mirror rather than through the windshield".  If we purely address "what was deficient about the work submitted" then we don't provide students with the chance to improve or move the learning forward.  Do the methods we use address both what needs to improve as well as how to improve?

Involve me in the process - At times, feedback to students can be seen as "You've done this work, now here is my judgement".  As teachers we need to use our experience and expertise to rightly help students move forward.  We have the biggest understanding of gaps in knowledge so should be providing guidance.  But a common theme from students was how it sometimes feels a one way process.  Some students in my in house survey indicated that they knew the particular weaknesses in their work.  The spoke about how they would have loved the opportunity to have been asked if there was anything in particular they would like the teacher to focus on when they check it.  Involving them in the process makes them more receptive to it.

Robotic feedback - For simple efficiency we as teachers usually give out generic feedback statements or comments to groups of learners.  If we didn't we'd be marking and providing feedback for days on end.  But students check with each other and find that if other students have the same worded comments, all of a sudden it becomes impersonal and loses its impact.  They worry that if we haven't put in the effort, why should they.  Now we know that is not the case but students see this as robotic feedback.  They see it as cold and not specifically targeted for them.  Now this is a tricky one, unless we increase our work load (which I don't recommend) is there a way we can tweak this so students do feel it is there to help them?

So now what?

Having an understanding of what we do as teachers, and how students perceive feedback, is a really important point.  The aim is not to completely reinvent how we give feedback, but assess why things might not stick and look to tweak/get that little bit better.  In my next post I will look at methods that aim to tackle many of the above points and make the feedback we give actually have an impact.  In the meantime, here are some more literature on feedback and how to make it more effective:

The student questionnaire: https://www.dropbox.com/s/b273k5xzfxsvnzr/Feedback%20Questionnaire.docx

This is being submitted as part of Octobers #blogsync. Read the other entries here: http://blogsync.edutronic.net/

#TLT13 and ResearchEd Making Feedback Stick presentation - David Fawcett http://prezi.com/cy5bd7p2k1gl/making-feedback-stick/

Embedded Formative Assessment - Dylan Wiliam 2011 http://www.amazon.co.uk/Embedded-Formative-Assessment-Dylan-William/dp/193400930X

The Power of Feedback: John Hattie and Helen Timperley http://education.qld.gov.au/staff/development/performance/resources/readings/power-feedback.pdf

Differing perceptions in the feedback process: David Carless http://www.victoria.ac.nz/education/pdf/david-carless.pdf

Visible Learning for Teachers - John Hattie 2012 http://www.amazon.co.uk/Visible-Learning-Teachers-Maximizing-Impact/dp/0415690153

The Hidden Lives of Learners - Graham Nutthal 2007 http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hidden-Lives-Learners-Graham-Nuthall/dp/1877398241/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1383154410&sr=1-1&keywords=hidden+lives+of+learners

Edssential - Feedback category http://edssential.co.uk/feedback/

Edssential - Marking category http://edssential.co.uk/marking/