Feedback is a Gift

Recently one of my client schools had their monthly faculty meeting. I am leading a book study with them using, The Growth Mindset Coach, A Teacher’s Month-by-Month Handbook for Empowering Students to Achieve. This month’s theme was Feedback is a Gift – Accept it. I love that idea! So often we give feedback to our students and they smile and never think about the feedback again. Maybe…it is how we are presenting the feedback.

This chapter on feedback discusses the idea of process praise. In the book study from last school year, The Power of Our Words: Teacher Language That Helps Children Learn, we discussed the idea of reinforcing language. Both of these ideas, while called different terms, are saying that the feedback we give needs to be specific and direct. Our feedback needs to be related to the process of their learning. As educators we should reinforce what they did well so the students can use the critique to replicate what they did well. Too often, we use the blanket phrase ‘Good Job’ but that does not tell the student what they did well and gives them no information to replicate what they did the next time.

Let’s look at a few examples and how the feedback can be more effective. First is a general feedback statement then an example of a process, specific feedback statement.

Great job on your writing assignment. ➡️ Your use of examples from the novel made your argument stronger.

You completed all your math problems correctly. ➡️ Showing all your work let you see where your error was so you could complete the problem correctly.

You turned in all your work on time. ➡️ Using your planner has seemed to help you keep track of your assignments and get them in on time.

But what about feedback that teaches. Feedback that informs and guides learning. Feedback should let a student know what they did well but also what they can improve on. Here’s some examples that include feedback that teaches. These examples give specific ways to improve what a student is already doing.

You have great thoughts but your ideas get lost in your writing because your sentence lengths are too long. Let’s discuss several of your sentences and see how we can make them into two sentences to clear up the meaning.

Your lab write-up had all the necessary parts listed in the rubric. A more detailed step by step of the experiment would help the reader now what occurred.

So will the students accept our feedback? Hopefully clarity and specificity will definitely help. A positive relationship with students also helps but that is different post. Let’s try to present our feedback as a gift. One they can re-open any time to affect their process of learning and the specific ways to grow in their learning.

Looking for some personalized PD for your school?  Maybe you want to study a topic, let’s discuss a book study. Or we can discuss an end of year reflection workshop with your faculty. Reach out and let’s talk. Reach out via Instagram (@edtechease) or Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/edtechease/) or email me, swladis@edtechease.com.