Touchstone 7

I use feedback to encourage effort.

Students arrive in our classrooms with diverse backgrounds and talents. No matter what their accomplishments have been in the past, the amount of effort they give has a great effect on how well they learn. Students who have been "A" students in the past, can give little effort and will learn less that they could. Students who have not done well in the past, can change course and learn far more than in the past, if they put forth more effort. The more we can encourage and support effort, the more we can help our students excel and succeed.

One way to develop this experience and to help students learn is to use regular feedback to encourage effort. This has not always been practiced. In the traditional classroom, especially in the past, teachers taught content and expected correct answers. After a time of teaching and possible practice, a summative test was given. Students answered questions and received a numerical score based on the percentage of correct answers. Either they had "gotten it" and received an "A" or they had not, and received a "B, C, D or F". Usually, students had one chance to succeed, and then the teacher moved on to the next chapter or topic.

There are growth-oriented methods of feedback that actually help students do better, instead of being a summative type of feedback of pass or fail. When students are beginning a unit, or in the middle of learning something new, repeated summative assessments with numerical scores do not give direction or feedback that facilitates learning. Instead, a teacher can do several things. They might provide a rubric with expected learning outcomes. Students can assess themselves or work with a peer to evaluate what they are doing well and where they can work to improve. Even a note on the student's work that comments on what has been accomplished so far, and offers ways to guide them to move on to more achievement, can motivate and give direction. When students are taught that their mistakes are a time to say, "I just don't have it….yet," they can feel like their efforts have given them another opportunity to move forward or maybe in a different direction. It's not the end of the world and they have not failed. The key idea here is that students should be able to do something with what their teachers provide. Feedback should point them toward specific behaviors they can develop, actions they can take, or learning they can pursue to meet their learning goals (Goodwin & Hubbell, 2013).

Evidence has shown that when teachers change their methods of feedback to be encouraging, nonjudgemental, non-controlling, given immediately or within a short time, and including specific ways to improve, it can have tremendous results. For example, education in Finland was revolutionized in recent years by adopting new methods of teacher training, new curriculum, and by changing their methods of feedback. The National Educational Association (NEA), reports that, "Finland came from behind to become the world leader in student achievement." The NEA also stated that in Finland "most teacher feedback to students is in narrative form, emphasizing descriptions of the learning progress and areas for growth" (Darling-Hammond, 2010). Dr. J. Hattie (as cited in Goodwin & Hubbell, 2013) synthesized over 800 education articles that included more than 200 million students and found that student feedback was ranked among the highest in factors improving student performance.

References

Darling-Hammond, L. (2010, Oct/Nov). What we can learn from Finland’s successful school reform. NEA

Today Magazine. Retrieved from http://www.nea.org/home/40991.htm

Goodwin, B. & Hubbell, E. (2013). The 12 touchstones of good teaching: A checklist for staying focused every

day. Association for Supervision Curriculum Development. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision &

Curriculum Development. [Bookshelf Online].