This might be everybody’s experience who is involved in teaching and evaluating students. Why don’t students make better use of the feedback we provide on the exam paper, presentations and assignments? Why does the same error get repeated? Is it that students don’t read the feedback? Is it the problem of the feedback? Are we communicating the way they understand the strengths and weaknesses while attempting the answer? We do see some improvement as we look back across a course but we also see quite a few same errors repeated throughout the course.
Feedback has been widely cited as an important facilitator of learning and performance. Its aim is to increase knowledge, skills and understanding. Good feedback tells the students what needs to be fixed or revised. Such feedback tends to be specific and reduces cognitive uncertainty than facilitative feedback.
When teachers grade the assignments and write comments providing feedback hoping to explain the grade and simultaneously offering an insight into the mistakes the students committed, it may involve a sort of advice or suggestions. This helps the students write a better paper next time and improve the grade.
But often the feedback does not achieve these goals. We are always under a delusion that the feedback we give is insightful and encouraging; comments, we hope students will take to heart and use to improve their writing next time. We return the paper and students curiously take their calculator (though sometimes they won’t get it for the math exam), look at the grade and stuff the paper in their backpacks! Perhaps muttering something under their breath as they usually do. It takes a lot of time and effort to provide students with good feedback. Most of us tackle the task seriously and scrupulously. But are we getting a good return to our investment – though we think students are grade oriented, they would want to do better on subsequent tests and assignments and would use our feedback to help them accomplish that goal.
Feedback leads to better performance but not all the time and not as often as the teacher would like it, given the time and effort we devote in providing students feedback. But it’s sure that there is an alternative to this unproductive cycle of giving the same feedback again and again and getting the same errors from the students. Through this article I want to alert the teaching fraternity who I feel is dumbfounded by the same experience that I had – that feedback works wonders if we communicate it knowing its the purpose.
It is a challenging task I agree but the feedback that we offer students tends to be focused on justifying the grade – it may defend the awarded grade. Though it is appropriate to a certain extent, it does not highlight what the student needs to do to improve.
Rae and Cochrane wrote, ‘If assessment feedback is to be effective in guiding learning, it should focus on growth rather than grading; encouraging and advancing student learning.’ This gives much thought to our feedback. We know we can identify problems but did we communicate as to how they could be fixed or have we assumed that it would be obvious to students?
There are many techniques and researches on assessment, evaluation and feedback effects in the learning process. Most of them agree on the benefit of the feedback which requires adopting a method of communication that pays attention to what is being said as well as how it is said. Feedback should always verify the work done by the student. It should indicate whether the answer is correct, and also it should be elaborated. Feedback can encourage and discourage the students in writing.
It depends on the specificity of the message. Let me present the psychological point of view. First, of all the content of the feedback should reveal that we care about the students and students are capable of doing well. We are concerned and take responsibility to guide them. We will guide them to the path to success by keeping in mind their aptitude and capacity. Secondly, feedback should not be just advice, though they are connected but not related. You are giving feedback by knowing the student’s strengths and weaknesses so that the student can get to know what his mistakes are and what was correct. When it comes to advice, it is an opinion or recommendation offered as a guide to action. Hence, we are less sure about the student’s strengths and weaknesses, thus we advise. Feedback needs to specifically point out where changes and improvements are required, where the teachers have identified extra focus is needed like misspelled words, deviation from the question, etc. Though we remind the students still they don’t read the question properly.
For students to be able to act on feedback provided by the teachers, Sadler, Dr (2010) (Beyond feedback: Developing student capability in complex appraisal) asserts that students must develop appraisal expertise that relies on knowledge of concepts in three areas: task compliance, quality and criteria. Task compliance refers to whether the student does what the answer requests.
(Command term) It doesn’t make sense when students make the effort to construct an answer that purposefully doesn’t answer the question. When confronted, students are often surprised and don’t seem to understand what the problem is or question is. That means they did not understand the question and command term or the task they have been asked to complete.
Quality refers to the ability to make holistic judgments that differentiate excellent work from work that is not. Sadler points out that quality is often difficult to define in the abstract but easy to see in examples. Teachers grade student work a lot; quality judgments are made easily. But when a student compares his answer with that of a fellow student who received more points, the student frequently objects that his answer is just as good. He made the same points but didn’t get as much credit. The issues here involve quality and the student’s inability to see what distinguished the colleague’s answer from his own. Some criteria teachers use in assessing student work is simple and straightforward. Hence, teachers should be well trained on these criteria which clarify the rubrics so teachers can go ahead with that.
Feedforward is another term equally important as feedback. Feedforward is more future oriented. Feedback is a response to what the student did but in the light of what needs to be done on the next assignment. Feedforward includes description of the assignment and the criteria that will be used to assess it. The criteria may be detailed as they frequently are when rubrics are used. Feedback should be specific and goal directed that provides the learner with information about his progress towards a desired goal.
This will also include the acquisition of tasks or behaviour towards achieving the goal. In conclusion good feedback can significantly improve the learning process and out-comes if delivered correctly. The last three words ‘if delivered correctly’ comprise the crux of the whole process. It all depends on the teacher how well he makes an effort to provide a good feedback with the intention of improving the present level of the student. Let us all make this aspect of teachinglearning process effective by facilitating the child’s rudimentary skills transform into competence.
REFERENCE:http://www.progressiveteacher.in/feedback-can-transform-rudimentary-skills-into-competence/
