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):

1. Where am I going? (i.e. What are the goals? - Feed Up)

2. How am I doing/going? (i.e. What progress is being made toward the goal? - Feedback)

3. 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:

1. Do you give clear, concise feedback related to the learning goals?

• Focus on the quality of student work, Identifies success and achievement

2. Do you identify what was done well, and what needs improvement?

• Related to agreed success criteria

3. 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: 

1. Feedback about the task (product)

2. Feedback about the processing of the task 

3. Feedback about the learner’s self-regulation 

4. 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. 

General Guidelines

A summary of considerations for the form and content of feedback. Adapted from Shute (2008)

1. Focus feedback on specific features of the task, with suggestions on how to improve. Do not focus on the learner themselves.

2. Provide elaborated feedback: the what, how, and why of a problem. This is more effective than simple verification of results.

3. Provide elaborated feedback in manageable units, small enough that it is not overwhelming.

4. Be specific and clear with the feedback message. 

5. Keep feedback as simple as possible - just enough to help students. 

6. Simple feedback relies on just one cue; complex feedback relies on multiple cues.

7. Remove uncertainty for learners; be clear about the gap between the performance and the goal. 

8. Give unbiased, objective feedback. 

9. Promote a focus on learning rather than performance e.g. by emphasizing the role of effort and that mistakes are part of learning. 

10. Provide feedback after learners have attempted a solution. 

11. Do not give normative comparisons with other learners. 

12. Be cautious about providing overall grades. 

13. Do not discourage the learner or threaten their self-esteem. 

14. Use praise sparingly, if at all. 

15. 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.