Module 8: Communicating Feedback

Analyze feedback you've provided to your students against the dimensions of quality of feedback for online/blended learning environments, and provide me with feedback on this course.

Feedback and instruction are closely related. In fact, you can view feedback as a type of instruction, but there is an important distinction—feedback comes as a direct “consequence” of student performance and is focused on improving that performance. In his seminal synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses on student achievement, John Hattie found that feedback had one of the most powerful impacts on student learning. However, Hattie also found that “some types of feedback are more powerful than others” (p. 174). As a result, simply increasing the amount of feedback is not enough. If you are going to impact students’ learning, you must increase the right kinds of feedback. 

Assigning grades or scores is not the same as providing feedback. Teachers often provide students with grades or points with generic comments rather than providing them with quality feedback. This leaves students wondering how the teacher decided on their grade and may cause a perception that the teacher is randomly assigning points without truly assessing their work--as demonstrated in the following video.

In this course alone you have received feedback in a variety of ways, not to mention all of the types of feedback that you have received in your other courses. In addition, as a teacher you provide students with feedback in a variety of ways. 

Take some time exploring some (2-3 videos) of videos in this playlist. As you watch, consider your own experiences providing and/or receiving feedback. 

On the following Padlet, please post a video comment sharing the forms of feedback that you appreciate receiving the most and the obstacles that you face or see yourself facing providing students with feedback. Also, include any insights you had when watching the videos in the playlist on feedback (include the teacher's name if possible): https://georgemasonu.padlet.org/jered_borup/feedback-k9b7o6uw4grhucyr 

As you read and view the materials below, you will be recording your thought in your copy of this Google Document. 

We use the metaphor of a cheeseburger to discuss strategies for providing effective feedback. We chose this metaphor because it can show you how timing, content, and delivery all come together to form effective feedback. There are specific elements that make a cheeseburger, and they are typically organized in a specific way. Feedback is the same way—there are elements that are best organized a specific way.

• The Bun (Relationship Building): You should remember to greet the student by name. Also, using a little small talk can be helpful to make them feel at ease. These are small actions that can have big impacts on how students interpret and use your feedback.

• The Cheese (Specific Praise): Next, you should give specific praise that focuses on students’ projects.

• The Meat (Needed Corrections): Next, you should provide specific corrections.

• The Lettuce (General Praise): You don't want to end with corrections so it's good to follow them up with some general praise.

• The Bun (Support): You then want to end with offering support to the student.

Often teachers understand how to provide quality feedback but simply lack the time to do it consistently. The blended classroom presents some interesting challenges but also opportunities in regard to providing quality feedback efficiently. For instance, in blended environments, it’s more likely that students will submit their projects online. Their projects can also be complex and created in formats (such as a video or website) that don’t lend themselves to attaching comments as you would in a word processing document that has built-in tracked changes and comment features. At the same time, learning management systems and other online communication tools can make it much easier to provide students with a high degree of feedback efficiently. The following strategies will help you to fulfil this important responsibility: 

• Online Rubrics: Grading rubrics are a standard feature of learning management system gradebooks. You can easily create detailed rubrics that are linked to specific assignments in ways that not only help you assess students’ work but also help to clearly communicate assignment expectations to students at the start of the project. It is also important to note that rubric scores should not replace feedback comments that are specific to students.  

• Feedback Templates: Feedback should be personal to each student and his or her performance. However, you may often see mistakes or areas for improvement that are the same, or at least similar, across multiple students. In those times, you may be able to save some time by creating a feedback template that can be modified to meet students’ specific projects.

• Strategically Providing Video and Audio Comments: Blended teachers have the ability to communicate with students in a variety of formats, including via in-person, written, audio, or video comments. Rather than asking, “Does the feedback for this project need to be [in-person, written, audio, or video]?” it’s better to ask, “Is this specific student, on this specific project, best served with an in-person, written, audio, or video comment or some combination of these?” For instance, when the required feedback is complex, it can be easier for you to communicate that feedback in a screen recording. You may also ask students to come talk to you in-person once they have watched the video feedback comment. 

• Peer Feedback: It’s possible for teachers to spend their time more effectively if students receive feedback from their peers before receiving instructor feedback. For instance, you can implement a three-before-me policy that requires students to receive feedback from three peers before actually submitting the project to you for feedback. John Hattie’s review of research found that 80% of feedback that students receive actually comes from their peers. Unfortunately, 80% of that feedback is incorrect! As a result, you should help students learn how to provide quality feedback to their peers. For instance, you can create specific rubrics and then help students understand how to use those rubrics while providing feedback. You can also use feedback patterns such as T.A.G.: TELL something that you liked, ASK a thoughtful question, GIVE a suggestion. The other pattern that I've like is Praise, Question, Polish (PQP). There are even sentence starters that can be helpful to students--especially younger students. 

Cause #1: Chrissy McLaughlin

Chrissy McLaughlin, the 6th grade FCPS teacher and BOLS graduate.  She uses project-based learning extensively with her students. Commonly students create complex online products. For instance, when reading historical fiction her students create websites using Google Sites to expand on the historical setting of the book. Chrissy provides them with feedback in-person, in text, and via screencast recordings. One advantage of the screencast feedback is that she can be very specific in her comments. The recording also provides students with a permanent resource that they can refer back to when making revisions. This is one of the feedback comments that Chrissy provided to her students. We removed the first portion of the comment because it contained students’ names.

Unfortunately, I can't embed the Teaching Channel video but you can click the screenshot below that is linked to the video. This is an old example but still a good one. Plus it's a good history lesson on what an iPod used to look like. It's now WAY easier to provide audio feedback using tools like https://vocaroo.com/ 

While we are focusing on you providing students with feedback, students providing feedback to you can be especially powerful and impactful on their learning when you apply that feedback to improve instruction. Again, John Hattie’s seminal synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to student achievement highlights the need for student provided feedback. Hattie explained, “the most important feature was the creation of situations in classrooms for the teacher to receive more feedback about their teaching” because it created a “ripple effect back to the student” (p. 12). Online communication can actually help students provide you with meaningful feedback because their comments can be anonymous. It can also give students the opportunity to provide you with feedback at any time. For instance, you could create an anonymous feedback survey using Google Forms that they link in the sidebar of a course website that students can access while they are working on assignments. Even if students attach their names to their survey responses, communicating with their teacher online allows students to open up in ways that they are unlikely to do in person (see the video below).