Before you give feedback, make sure your students know what they are expected to learn and how they will be assessed. Communicate the learning goals and the success criteria for each task or project, and provide examples of good work. This will help your students self-assess their own progress and identify their strengths and areas for improvement. It will also make your feedback more relevant and meaningful, as you can refer to the goals and criteria when you praise or suggest changes.
Always start with the WHY: when everyone understands the importance of WHY this project and all are committed to achieve a common goal, Set Milestone with Timeline together. Details are discussed such that they find it challenging yet excited to achieve it. Setting an impossible goal will kill interest. Each Milestone comes with clear KPI and person in charge. With that, students were be objective when discussing and less unlikely to take it personal
Rubrics are a great way to share the success criteria with your students. Make sure that you communicate at the beginning of a unit of learning what it is exactly that students are focusing their attention on through the course of instruction. When you set goals and outcomes intentions early in the learning path, it is much easier to scaffold student feedback toward those intentions instead of just giving random information.
Before giving feedback: 1. Clear Rubrics: Outline detailed criteria and standards. 2. Student Involvement: Let students help create assessment criteria. 3. Ongoing Clarification: Regularly revisit goals and criteria. 4. Feedback Workshops: Teach students how to use feedback. 5. Self-Assessment Tools: Provide tools for self-evaluation. These steps ensure feedback is relevant and helps students take ownership of their learning.
Feedback can be given in different modes and methods, such as oral or written, individual or group, formative or summative, formal or informal, direct or indirect. Depending on the purpose and context of the feedback, choose the mode and method that best suits your students' needs and preferences. For example, oral feedback can be more immediate and interactive, but written feedback can be more detailed and permanent. Individual feedback can be more personalized and specific, but group feedback can be more efficient and collaborative. Formative feedback can be more frequent and ongoing, but summative feedback can be more comprehensive and evaluative.
Base feedback on the desired outcomes. What do we want our students to produce at the culmination of instruction? What feedback do they need to accomplish this? Focus responses on what each student needs to succeed. Group feedback might not be appropriate for an entirely individual project, even if multiple students have the same struggle. Combining group and individualized information could help teachers meet the needs of their learners more completely.
Choose feedback modes based on: 1. Contextual Relevance: Tailor to the task and learning environment. 2. Student Preferences: Consider individual vs. group and oral vs. written. 3. Balanced Approach: Blend formative and summative feedback. 4. Timeliness: Provide feedback promptly. 5. Diverse Delivery: Use varied methods like audio, video, or peer feedback. This approach ensures effective feedback that meets students' needs and enhances learning outcomes.
Feedback should not only focus on the final product or outcome, but also on the process and the strategies that students use to learn and perform. This type of feedback can help students develop their metacognitive skills, such as planning, monitoring, and reflecting on their own learning, as well as improve their quality and accuracy of work and confidence. To balance feedback on the process and the product, use different types of questions, comments, and prompts. For example, ask what they did well, what they found challenging, how they approached the task, what strategies they used and how effective were they, what they learned from this project, and how they can apply what they learned to other situations.
SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Timely. Specific feedback is focused and clear, not vague or general. Measurable feedback is quantifiable and observable. Achievable feedback is realistic and attainable. Relevant feedback is aligned and consistent with the learning goals and criteria, not unrelated or contradictory. Timely feedback is given as soon as possible after the task or performance, not delayed or outdated.
Feedback without actionable goals is often taken as criticism and nitpicking, especially if it comes from a parent or someone who is not familiar with what the student is going through. To make the most of the feedback to students, it is important to quantify your feedback in the form of action items! SMART is a great framework to structure your feedback, in addition to FAST (Focused, Actionable, Specific, Time) and if you want to segue into a more empathetic style of feedback, I recently learned of CLEAR (Considerate, Logical, Encouraging, Actionable, Relevant).
Sharing examples for SMART: 1. S: "Great you improved!" vs "Great job in using descriptive language in your essay. The way you described the setting made it very vivid!" 2. M: "You improved!" vs "You scored 85% on your math test, that's a 10% improvement! This time you scored full marks for Speed topic!" 3. A: "please revise!" vs "Learn 5 new words each week to improve your spelling." 4. R: "your argument is weak" vs "Include more evidence, example a statistics to strengthen your argument." 5.T: if you know your student is shy, do prompt them to make ye contact with audience before, not after presentation. By providing SMART feedback, students receive clear and actionable advice for improvement.
Feedback is not a one-way communication, but a two-way dialogue between the teacher and the student, and among the students themselves. To foster a feedback culture in your classroom, promote feedback literacy and dialogue. Feedback literacy is the ability to seek, receive, interpret, and use feedback effectively. Feedback dialogue is the exchange of feedback that is respectful, constructive, and supportive. To achieve this, teach feedback skills, create a supportive environment for feedback, provide opportunities for peer and self-feedback, and follow up on feedback to ensure students are responding to and applying it. Doing so will ensure that students feel comfortable to share their work, opinions, and feelings.
Model Respectful Communication: Demonstrate and promote respectful, constructive communication. Example: Use inclusive language, actively listen to students' ideas, and show appreciation for diverse perspectives. When a student shares an opinion, acknowledge their contribution and encourage others to build on it. I use this framework with my students: 1. Be courageous to acknowledge the old (self, thoughts, ideas etc) and also the new one. 2. Objectively, do (what), by (when) to conclude the outcome. This allow the students to detach emotional but to look at the problem objective and, to have a timeline in mind to achieve the desire outcome.
Dialogue is a crucial aspect of successful feedback for students. It shouldn't be just a teacher saying what is good or what to change. Discussions where students ask questions, provide their own rationale, and seek out support from peers can create a much more extensive revision and support process throughout the entire creation of their product.