Providing Descriptive Feedback to Students

Transcription

1 Providing Descriptive Feedback to Students Judy Arter Independent Consultant Loren Ford Clackamas Community College January 27-28, 2011 Anderson Conference Shifting From a Grading Culture to a Learning Culture: ASSESSMENT THEORY AND PRACTICE Judy Arter PO Box 470, Beavercreek, OR judy@bctonline.com Adapted from: Stiggins, R., Arter, J., Chappuis, J., and Chappuis, S. (2006). Student Assessment For Student Learning (CASL), Portland: Pearson Assessment Training Institute. Arter, J. and Chappuis, J. (2006). Creating and Recognizing Quality Rubric (CAR), Portland: Pearson Assessment Training Institute..

2 Seminar Goals 1. Understand the relationship betwen assessment and student motivation 2. Understand the different between assessment of and for learning 3. Deepen your understanding of keys to classroom assessment quality 4. Deepen your understanding of assessment for learning strategies Goals For This Session 1. Deepen your understanding of keys to classroom assessment quality Keys 4 (Effective Communication) and 5(Student Involvement) 2. Deepen your understanding of the importance of and how to provide descriptive rather than evaluative feedback during learning KEY 4: EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION DESCRIPTIVE FEEDBACK My definition of feedback: Forms of feedback I am familiar with: Characteristics of effective feedback: Judy Arter and Loren Ford, Anderson Conference, PCC, January

3 RESEARCH ON THE EFFECTS OF FEEDBACK ON STUDENT LEARNING A key premise is that for students to be able to improve, they must have the capacity to monitor the quality of their own work during actual production. This in turn requires that students: Know what high quality work looks like Be able to objectively compare their work to the standard Have a store of tactics to make work better based on their observations (Sadler, 1989) Effective feedback points out successes and gives specific information about how to improve the performance or product. (Black & Wiliam, 1998; Black, et al, 2002; bloom, 1989; Brown, 1994) Feedback is effective when it offers information about progress relative to the intended learning goal and about what action to take to reach the intended learning goal. (Hattie & Timperley, 2005) Comments directed to the quality of the work--what was done well and what needs improving--increase student interest in the task and level of achievement. (Butler, 1988) Research shows that feedback that emphasizes learning goals leads to greater learning gains than feedback that emphasizes self-esteem. (Ames, 1992; Butler, 1998; Dweck, 1986) When receiving feedback emphasizing self-esteem, high-performing students often attribute their performance to effort and low-performing students attribute their performance to lack of ability. (Butler & Newman, 1995; Cameron & Pierce, 1994; Kluger & denisi, 1996) Feedback that cues the individual to direct attention to self (praise, effort, etc.) rather than to the quality of the task appears to have a negative effect on learning. Many studies speak to effective teachers praising less than average. (Cameron/Pierce, 1994; Kluger & DiNisi, 1996) Feedback is effective when it addresses partial understanding. When student work demonstrates lack of understanding, feedback will not help. (Hattie & Timperley, 2007) Grading every piece of homework is misdirected. A numerical grade does not show students how to improve their work. Further, students ignore comments when grades are given. (Butler, 1998) When teachers substituted comments for grades, students engaged more productively in improving their work. (Black, et al, 2002) CONCLUSION Effective feedback to improve learning: 1. Directs attention to the learning, pointing out strengths and offering specific information to guide improvement; aligns with the learning targets for an activity 2. Occurs during the learning process; gives an opportunity to get better before the grading event 3. Addresses partial understanding; not effective if the student knows nothing 4. Does not do the thinking for the student 5. Limits correctives to what a student can act on in a given amount of time Judy Arter and Loren Ford, Anderson Conference, PCC, January

4 DESCRIPTIVE OR EVALUATIVE FEEDBACK? Which of these examples of typical feedback most closely match the characteristics of effective instructional feedback? Mark all you think are good examples of effective instructional feedback. Try harder next time. 70% You maintained eye contact with the audience throughout your whole presentation. + What you have written is a hypothesis because it is a proposed explanation. You can improve it by writing it as an if then statement. B+. Good work Your performance was strong in tone quality and intonation. You need to work on your rhythm in measures 10 and 14. Your work is consistently above average. You need to do your homework. I noticed that you drew other members of the team into the discussion by saying, "Do you agree?", or "What do you think?" Judy Arter and Loren Ford, Anderson Conference, PCC, January

5 Three-Minute Conference Activity Directions CASL, page Read the following directions for a three-minute conference. If you confer with students as a way to offer feedback on their work, consider asking them to do some thinking prior to meeting with you. This causes the conference to take less time and your feedback to be more meaningful. Try the following: a. Identify a focus for the feedback--narrow it, if needed. Have students focus on only a few aspects of quality--either you choose the aspects of quality based on what you have been teaching them to do or let them choose, depending on their level of sophistication. (For example, in writing, an instructor may be focusing on how to include details that are interesting, important, and informative, which is part of the trait of Ideas and Content in her rubric. So she may ask students to think about the quality of their details.) b. Before meeting with you (of submitting their work for your feedback) have students use the rubric to identify what aspects of quality are present in a particular piece of their work. Encourage them to use the language of the scoring guide. c. Have them follow the same procedure to identify one or two aspects of quality they think need work. d. During the conference, have the student talk first and tell you the strong and weak aspects of their work. e. Then offer your feedback. If you agree, it's simple. If you can, point out a sdtrength the student overlooked. Add to or modify what the student needs to work on, if needed. f. Ask students to take their own and your opinions into account and decide what to do next. At firest students may set large, unmanageable, or nonspecific goals. Help them, if needed, focus their plan on what is doable in the short term. g. If your students have practiced giving formative feedback, encourage them to use each other as feedback providers. 2. Find a partner. The person with the longer fingers is Partner A. The shorter-fingered person is Partner B. 3. Partner A: You are Balinda. You have just given your practice oral presentation. Prepare to conference with your instructor by identifying your presentation s strengths and problems, if any, for the trait of Delivery, using the language of the scoring guide. Write the strengths and problem(s) on the following page under My Opinion. Partner B: You are Balinda s instructor. S/he has just given her practice oral presentation. Prepare to conference with Balinda about her presentation by identifying strengths and problems, if any, for the trait of Delivery. Using the language of the scoring guide, write the strengths and problems on this page. Partner B Record your thoughts here: Presentation s strengths for Delivery: Presentation s problem(s), if any, with Delivery: 4. Conduct a three-minute conference with your partner. Let Balinda be the writer on the form. Judy Arter and Loren Ford, Anderson Conference, PCC, January

6 FEEDBACK FORM Partner A Trait(s): Delivery Name: Balinda Assignment: _One-minute oral presentation_ Date: January 16, 2008_ MY OPINION My strengths are What I think I need to work on is MY INSTRUCTOR S OPINION Strengths Work on MY PLAN What I will do now Next time I ll ask for feedback from Judy Arter and Loren Ford, Anderson Conference, PCC, January