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“Feedback” - What Difference Does It Make?
By Charlie | February 22, 2008
Feedback given to students from teachers often serves to be the hinge-pin upon which the success or failure of student learning swings. Feedback can be both the instrument that serves to propel a student to greater learning or an instrument that stifles any advancement in learning or even the motivation to learn.
The difference between the two extremes lies in the nature of the feedback. In general, feedback falls either into the evaluative feedback or descriptive feedback. The former stifles learning and motivation while the latter encourages students to learn and facilitates that learning. So understanding the difference is essential.
Evaluative feedback consists essentially of feedback that judges the student’s work and assigns some sort of evaluation usually in the form of a grade. Regarding learning targets, evaluative feedback consists of a simple “you hit the target” or “you missed the target” or maybe “you missed the target by this much”.
Descriptive feedback consists of sharing with students specifics on their progress toward the target. It includes comments on specific things students need to change in their performance in order to improve. The classic example of descriptive feedback is that of a coach teaching athletics to improve their performance or music teachers working with students to improve their musical ability. Coaches never simply say, “you didn’t swim fast enough”. Instead, they tell the swimmer how to improve their stroke to increase speed or reduce drag. Classroom teachers, when operating from a clearly defined, understood, and articulated learning targets can provide the same type of feedback to the learners by telling them specifically what they need to improve to come closer to hitting the target.
Please share with the BISD assessment community your thoughts or experiences with feedback to students. It is not an easy or automatic proceedure to provide descriptive feedback.
Topics: Feedback |
May 21st, 2008 at 9:52 am
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