providing students with meaningful feedback can greatly enhance learning and improve student achievement.
feedback
here are five research-based tips for providing students with the kind of feedback that will increase motivation, build on existing knowledge, and help them reflect on what they've learned.
feedback is most effective when it is given immediately
researchers suggest taking the time to provide learners with information on what exactly they did well, and what may still need improvement. They also note that it can be helpful to tell the learner what he is doing differently than before.
Sooner the Better
Specific
the researchers found that participants who were given immediate feedback showed a significantly larger increase in performance than those who had received delayed feedback.
Advancement Toward a Goal
it should be clear to students how the information they are receiving will help them progress toward their final goal.
Involve Learners in the Process
When students have access to this information, they develop an awareness of their learning, and are more easily able to recognize mistakes and eventually develop strategies for tackling weak points themselves.
Feedback, by its very definition, is focused on the past, which can't be changed. Feedforward looks ahead at future possibilities that still fall under our control. Feedback tends to reinforce personal stereotypes or negative self-fulfilling prophecies. Feedforward looks beyond what is in favor of what can be.
Deployed by districts or contracted by individual schools, instructional coaches live alongside the faculty and provide on-the-job support to teams of teachers.
This is happening in some sites I support in my District. I am hoping to bring that to life even more to improve vertical alignment and strengthen the horizontal alignment in course-alikes.
PLCs bring together teachers with shared interests and goals for frequent discussion about and analysis of teaching practices.