Helping Students Learn With Feedback
All of a sudden we’re a quarter of the way through this semester. (No, we can’t believe it either.) The seven-week drop date is coming up on February 20. This means students will be deciding whether they need to drop any courses. In order to make informed decisions, students need to know if they’re on track or not, and how they should adjust. So by this point, they should have some practice under their belts and have received some feedback. They can get a lot of practice and feedback from in-class activities, but they also need feedback on some graded work, like assignments, quizzes, an exam, etc. Of course, they don’t need feedback just to make decisions about the number of hours they’re taking this term. They also need feedback in order to learn.
In How Learning Works, the authors describe a practice and feedback cycle in which students practice; we observe their performance; and they receive our feedback in time to apply it to their next attempt. In one course, that might look like asking students to write a rough draft of a paper in which they practice analyzing a text. Then, the instructor provides feedback on their analyses to help them develop and apply those analytical skills to a subsequent draft. In another course, it could look like giving students a problem to solve, providing time to work on it, listening to them talk through their reasoning, and giving them feedback that they can apply to solving the next problem of that type. Common to both examples is that students need to have opportunities to use the feedback to develop their skills and improve their performance.
When we give feedback, students need to know which goals they have accomplished and which ones they need to focus on in their next attempt. Letting students know where they have succeeded is essential so that they know what to continue doing in a similar way in the future and the strengths on which they can build. Letting them know what they need to improve is essential so that they can point their efforts in the right direction. When we’re letting students know how they can improve, we need to be specific, so that they can use our feedback to develop a plan. That said, it’s also important to keep in mind that students cannot learn everything in one attempt to practice or from one round of feedback. Too much feedback is overwhelming. As novices, students don’t know which feedback to prioritize, so as experts, it’s instructors’ role to set the priorities for improvement.
Nicol and Macfarlane-Dick developed seven principles of good feedback practice that we find very useful. As they explain, good feedback:
- Helps clarify what good performance is (goals, criteria, expected standards);
- Facilitates the development of self‐assessment (reflection) in learning;
- Delivers high quality information to students about their learning;
- Encourages teacher and peer dialogue around learning;
- Encourages positive motivational beliefs and self‐esteem;
- Provides opportunities to close the gap between current and desired performance; and
- Provides information to teachers that can be used to help shape teaching.
What’s especially valuable about the model is its emphasis on self-assessment and self-regulation in learning. The ability to accurately assess one’s own knowledge or skill is a hallmark of expertise, and although they may begin our courses as novices, students need to move toward mastery. Part of scaffolding that skill development is providing the right feedback at the right time.
If you’d like some support to build opportunities for practice and feedback into your course, we’d be happy to help! You can email us at pro-teaching@fsu.edu to schedule a consultation. We look forward to working with you!