You can get some good references and resources on Feedback from OPAL 2.0
STP Assessment and Feedback
STP Checking for Understanding and Providing Feedback
Here is the list of MLUs in OPAL 2.0
Providing Focused Feedback to Support Students' Learning (11m)
Supporting Students to Understand Feedback (8m)
Motivating Students to Act on Feedback (9.5min)
Reflection on Assessment in Singapore Context
Singapore Curriculum Philosophy (SCP)
Assessment is integral to the teaching and learning process and helps children become self-directed learners. As such, we design assessments with clarity of purpose to gather evidence of our learners’ progress, provide timely and targeted feedback to them to move their learning forward, and improve our teaching practices, harnessing technology where useful.
Feedback - The Most Powerful Tool
Feedback provides information to students and teachers about learning. It helps to reduce the gap between the student’s current level of understanding and/or performance and a desired goal. Depending on the nature and delivery of the feedback, it can have powerful positive effects on student learning and engagement (Hattie & Timperley, 2007).
Feedback is an essential practice of Assessment for Learning (AfL), “a 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). A substantial body of research identifies AfL as a powerful tool for improving students’ learning (Black, Harrison, Lee, Marshall & William, 2003).
AfL differs from Assessment of Learning (AoL) in that the information gathered is used for the specific purpose of helping students improve while they are still gaining knowledge and practising skills. Teachers who view assessment as integral to learning engage students as collaborative partners in the learning process. This assessment provides precise and timely information so teachers can adjust instruction in response to individual student needs, and so students can adjust their learning strategies or set different goals.
What does quality feedback look like?
Feedback is critical to improving learning as it both influences students’ motivation to learn and their ability to do so. Feedback includes telling students what they have done well and what they need to do to improve. It also includes reminding students of what they were aiming to achieve (the learning intentions). Finally, high quality feedback is always given against explicit and agreed criteria for success.
Effective Feedback
Relate specifically to a learning intention/goal and the associated success criteria.
Be timely, that is, immediate or soon after action.
Reduce the discrepancy between the desired and current understanding by answering 3 major questions (Hattie and Timperley, 2007):
Where am I going? (i.e. What are the goals? - Feed Up)
How am I doing/going? (i.e. What progress is being made toward the goal? - Feedback)
Where to next? (i.e. What activities need to be undertaken to make better progress? - Feed Forward)
Support students to monitor their own progress and achievements.
Reflecting on Teacher's Feedback
Teachers can reflect on the quality of their feedback with these questions:
Do you give clear, concise feedback related to the learning goals?
Focus on the quality of student work, Identifies success and achievement
Do you identify what was done well, and what needs improvement?
Related to agreed success criteria
Does your feedback include how students can improve?
Indicates suggestions for improvement
4. Are your students expected to act on your feedback?
Prompts student thinking
5. Do you provide the necessary time for students to act on the feedback?
Allow time for improvement to take place
6. Do you follow up on the feedback?
To continue support students learning
The 4 Levels of Feedback
Hattie and Timperley (2007) defined four different levels of feedback in the classroom:
Feedback about the task (product)
Feedback about the processing of the task
Feedback about the learner’s self-regulation
Feedback about the self
Choosing the most effective type or form of feedback is not an exact science so these are not hard-and-fast rules, but rather guidelines and considerations.
Definition: This level includes feedback about how well the task is being accomplished or performed
Examples:
Distinguishing correct from incorrect answers
Acquiring more or different information
Building more surface knowledge - reteach, multiple opportunities
Student Perspective:
Is it correct?
Do I meet the criteria?
How can I get this done?
How can I make this better?
Teacher Perspective:
The art is knowing when to add-in/move to feedback about the processes
When the student has sufficient task knowledge to begin to strategize
Make it simple until confidence in the knowledge begins to build
Some feedback examples:
We may want students to improve their responses to the current task. Teachers focus more frequently on helping students improve a specific piece of work by suggesting corrections or stating whether an answer is right.
“Try that again, but this time hold your head up throughout the movement.”
“Rewrite your answer to question 3 removing the brackets at step 2.”
“Paragraph 3 needs more evidence.”
“There is a problem with your answer to question 4.”
Definition: This level includes feedback specific to the processes underlying the tasks or relating and extending the tasks
Examples:
This information focus on the processes used to perform the task or develop the product
Student Perspective:
Is my task approach appropriate and well-executed?
How can I do better in tasks like this?
What does it mean to be good in this task?
Teacher Perspective:
Teachers comment on students' choice of strategies, application of strategies. Such feedback concerns information about
Relationships among ideas
Students' strategies for error detection
Explicitly learning from errors
Cue the learner to different strategies and errors
Some feedback examples:
We may want to help students deepen their understanding of learning and performing in the subject. Feedback on more general approaches to the subject may help students to identify and correct errors, use better strategies and process learning more deeply: this should lead to deeper understanding and better transfer to new tasks
“Always underline key words in the question, then write a plan linked to them.”
“Look back at the original question after each step, to check you are on track.”
“Reframe the problem as a diagram.”
“Once you’ve completed a design, go back to the brief and see if you’ve met the goals.”
“What do we always do first when we identify a problem with our work?”
Definition:
The way the students monitor, direct and regulate actions towards the learning goals
Examples:
Feedback on students' decisions to seek help, quality of their self-assessments, choice of goals and next steps
Student Perspective:
Am I organizing and evaluating my learning properly?
How can I manage myself to learn better?
Who do I want to be?
Teacher Perspective:
The capability to create internal feedback and to self-assess
The willingness to invest effort into seeking and dealing with feedback information
The place of self-assessment
The degree of confidence in the correctness of the response
The attributions about success or failure
The level of proficiency at help-seeking
Some feedback examples:
We may want students to improve their understanding of how they learn. First, this means helping students self-monitor, recognizing how well they are doing, what they know, and what is working; then it means helping them self-manage, planning and adapting in response to their self-monitoring.
We may help students to identify their current knowledge, skill and learning gaps – self-monitoring – and to think about how they can respond – self-managing:
“How did how well you did differ from what you expected?”
“What do you need to study more to improve in this area?”
“Which strategies that you used today worked well? Why?”
“What will you do differently during tomorrow’s practice session?”
Definition:
Feedback about the person
Examples:
Praise about the student such as "You're great" or "Good"
Student Perspective:
Am I a nice, diligent, able person?
How good am I?
Teacher Perspective:
Ever present, almost useless (and can be counter productive)
Praise that directs attention away from the task to the self "Good girl"
rarely about the task
contains little-task-related information
Praise directed to the effort , self-regulation, engagement, or processes relating to task/performance
"You're really great because you have diligently completed this task by applying this concept"
Some feedback examples:
Feedback about students themselves is less effective than feedback focused on the task, subject or self-regulation. So feedback aimed at students directly is likely to distract them from improvement, such as:
“You are a good/bad/indifferent student.”
“You always come up with excellent answers.”
“You’ve tried very hard at this.”
We can focus on helping students improve their work, rather than offering praise or personal criticism.
A closer at the 4 Levels of Feedback
General Guidelines
A summary of considerations for the form and content of feedback. Adapted from Shute (2008)
Focus feedback on specific features of the task, with suggestions on how to improve. Do not focus on the learner themselves.
Provide elaborated feedback: the what, how, and why of a problem. This is more effective than simple verification of results.
Provide elaborated feedback in manageable units, small enough that it is not overwhelming.
Be specific and clear with the feedback message.
Keep feedback as simple as possible - just enough to help students.
Simple feedback relies on just one cue; complex feedback relies on multiple cues.
Remove uncertainty for learners; be clear about the gap between the performance and the goal.
Give unbiased, objective feedback.
Promote a focus on learning rather than performance e.g. by emphasizing the role of effort and that mistakes are part of learning.
Provide feedback after learners have attempted a solution.
Do not give normative comparisons with other learners.
Be cautious about providing overall grades.
Do not discourage the learner or threaten their self-esteem.
Use praise sparingly, if at all.
Avoid hints that always directly lead to the correct answer; use prompts and cues, instead, to encourage thinking.
The most effective feedback is focused on the learner’s task, their processing of it, and their self-regulation; it is clear, specific, purposeful, and meaningful.
Feedback and assessment are two sides of the same coin. Assessment gives us information which we can use to give feedback to the student.
Some good infographics on Feedback
5 Research-Based Tips for Providing Students with Meaningful Feedback
Staff PD Workshop on Providing Focused Feedback to Support Students Learning on Wed 5-Apr 2023
Staff completed the MLU in OPAL 2.0 Providing Focused Feedback to Support Students' Learning (11m)
Staff then share their learning and reflection using Padlet (see the links below)
English (P1-P2) - Padlet link: https://go.gov.sg/dpspd2ellp
English (P3 - P6) - Padlet link: https://go.gov.sg/dpspd2elup
Mathematics - Padlet link: https://go.gov.sg/dpspd2ma
Science - Padlet link: https://go.gov.sg/dpspd2sc
MT - ML & TL - Padlet link: https://go.gov.sg/dpspd2mtmltl
MT - CL - Padlet link: https://go.gov.sg/dpspd2mtcl
PE, Art and Music - Padlet link: https://go.gov.sg/dpspd2pam
NIE Module for ILA0013 - Designing Quality Feedback in support of AfL on Fri 5-May 2023
A selected group of KPs and Teacher Leaders attending the module, conducted by Ms Durga Devi (Teaching Fellow, NIE). The link to the Google Site for this Module is as follows:
https://sites.google.com/view/damaipart1?usp=sharing
Staff PD Workshop on Motivating Students to Act on Feedback on Wed 12-Jul 2023
Staff completed the MLU in OPAL 2.0 on Motivating Students to Act on Feedback (9.5min)
Staff then share their learning and reflection using Padlet (see the links below)
English - Padlet link: https://go.gov.sg/dpspd3el
Mathematics - Padlet link: https://go.gov.sg/dpspd3ma
Science - Padlet link: https://go.gov.sg/dpspdal3sc
Mother Tongue - Padlet link: https://go.gov.sg/dpspdal3mt
PE, Art and Music - Padlet link: https://go.gov.sg/dpspdal3pam