Effective Feedback: The key to successful Assessment for Learning

Oslo 21 January 2020

Gordon Stobart

Emeritus Professor of Education, Institute of Education, University College London

g.stobart@ucl.ac.uk

The big picture

• Assessment for Learning

• For feedback to work: diagnostics; learning intentions and success criteria

• Two types of feedback – general and closing the learning gap

• Feedback works in two directions

• ‘Closing the gap’ – seven key elements

Assessment for Learning

Assessment for Learning is the process of seeking and interpreting evidence for use by learners and their teachers to decide where the learners are in their learning, where they need to go and how best to get there.

Assessment Reform Group (2002)

For feedback to work: diagnostics, learning intentions and success criteria

• Finding out where learners are in their learning:‘The most important single factor influencing learning is what the learner already knows..[find it].. and teach accordingly,’ (David Ausubel)

• Make clear what is being learned and why‘tuning in’ – vocabulary and phrases, linking to what is known

For example: ‘give a reason…

‘what did we learn about this last week’…

For feedback to work: diagnostics, learning intentions and success criteria

Royce Sadler’s paradox: why does thoughtful feedback often not work?

“If you do not know where you want to go, then it does not matter which road you take” (Alice in Wonderland)

• Understanding the success criteria

1. Negotiation: ‘Where would you like to get to by the end of this course?’

2. Exemplars: ‘which of these two (or more) pieces of work best meets the criteria?’

3. *Modelling: ‘Here’s what I mean...’

4. Guided practice: activity > independent practice (the teacher as sports coach) practice at least three to six times

Feedback works in two directions

Feedback is not simply a gift from the teacher.

Feedback was most powerful when it is from the student to the teacher… when teachers seek, or are at least open to, feedback from the students as to what students know , …. then teaching and learning can be synchronised and powerful.

John Hattie

There are different levels of feedback

1. Indirect feedback – ‘any communication that gives some access to other people’s opinions, feelings, thoughts or judgements about one’s own performance’ Michael Eraut

2. Direct and specific feedback – ‘Provides information which allows the learner to close the gap between current and desired performance’

Indirect feedback

Signals that send a feedback message:- The tasks set

- The grouping of students

- The timetable

- The facilities

Students may also want longer term general feedback on how they are doing relative to their cohort and their employer’s view of their progress. (Appraisal).

‘You can do it’ as motivational feedback.

Both kinds have emotional effects

‘This strong emotional dimension may lead to feedback intended to be narrow [specific, task focused] being interpreted as broad ….many recipients interpret it as being a comment on their person. The messages intended for guidance may be interpreted as judgemental’

Michael Eraut

Students decide how to handle any feedback – growth vs well-beingpathways (Boekaerts) – whether the emotional costs make it worth using the feedback. (‘How important is this for me?’)

Direct and specific feedback- seven key elements that‘close the gap’

1. Effective feedback is specific and clear: ‘medals and mission’i. ‘You contributed some good ideas to the discussion , but make sure your

partner has finished her sentence before you begin to speak’

ii.

‘is specific and clear’....‘In Norway feedback tends to be general and unspecific, consisting mainly of praise, and consequently, there is a lack of feedback on how to proceed with learning’ (Gamlem & Smith)

2.Effective feedback is well timed

• ‘Actions speak louder than words. Comments only become feedback when the learner is able to act on them, for example by making another attempt and understanding better how to use the language’

(Anthony Green)

• ‘Shorten the feedback loop’ (Doug Lemov)

• ‘When pupils are not given time to act on the feedback they see it as negative and critical which makes them feel ‘useless’. If they are given time and the teacher follows up on the feedback it is treated as positive’. (Gamlem and Smith)

• ……but don’t rescue too soon.

3. It is clearly linked to the learning intention and the learner understands the success criteria/standard

• We often lie to learners – we say we are looking for one thing and then mark for something else’ (usually grammar/spelling/presentation)

• Create ‘mood-setting’ in writing through our descriptions.

(Task: Write an opening paragraph that describes a place in a way that sets the mood for a story.) How will we know we’ve done this?

We will be able to recognise the mood the writer was creating.

The wind howled thrugh the stretes and the rain bownced of the pavements. The few people who were out huried head down from doorway to doorway. All escept one man who, coatless and upright carried a big wet bag.

4. Effective feedback focuses on the task rather than the learner

There’s a world of difference between ‘good job’ and ‘good boy’ (Peter Johnson)

John Wooden’s coaching method: whole/part; rapid feedback; task focused modelling – of 2000+ feedback comments 86% about how to do it (mainly by demonstration); 7% praise; 7% critical

5. Effective feedback gives prompts at the right levels on how to move learning forward

Teach rather than have to give corrective feedback (level 0)

When there are common misunderstandings don’t wait for mistakes

Example prompt (level 1)

When need to clarify what student is attempting to learn – for example a Norwegian grammar rule – ‘see how this works …..now give me another example’.

Giving feedback: prompts (2)Scaffolding prompt (level 2)

When student still struggling with concepts or skills

– ‘what is the rule here?’

Reminder prompt (level 3)

When learning ‘almost there’ and need reminder to use it – ‘Remember that the conclusion must link back to the topic in the opening paragraph’

Provocative prompt (level 4)

When the learner has met the success criteria feedback which calls for further development/thinking - ‘You’ve succeeded in this – can you think of another method you could have used’; ‘How would you argue against it rather than for it?’

6. Effective feedback offers strategies rather than solutions

• Find the errors: ‘you have three spelling errors in this section – which are they – and what are the correct spellings?

• Underline rather than correct errors?

• Look at the 1s in the Sudoku, then the 4s

7. Effective feedback challenges, requires action, and is achievable

‘If I had to reduce all the research on feedback into one simple idea …it would be this: feedback should cause thinking’ (Dylan Wiliam)

Challenge comes from the level of demand – the four levels of prompts and avoiding ‘arrested development’

Effectiveness is judged by what learners do with it rather than how well it was delivered.

Central to this is deliberate practice – targeted at improving performance & practising until fluent.

Comfort zone

Learning zone

Panic zone

Challenge & Deliberate practice

Source: Colvin, 2009

Feedback that closes the gap‘Provides information which allows the learner to close the gap between current and desired performance’It is most effective when it:

1. is specific and clear;2. is well timed;3. is clearly linked to the learning intention and the learner;

understands the success criteria/standard;4. focuses on the task rather than the learner (self/ego);5. gives prompts at the right level on how to move learning forward;6. offers strategies rather than solutions; 7. challenges, requires action, and is achievable.