Does Your Feedback Feed Forward?

Does your feedback feed forward? Eddy White Tokyo Woman’s Christian University

JALT 2008 International Conference on Language Teaching/Learning Tokyo, Japan

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Feedback on law student essay “Nonsense, rubbish, disastrous! This leads nowhere. It is only your minimal knowledge that prevents me from giving you an F”. (in Raaheim, 2006)

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Targets • Feedback background • My feedback research • Your feedback practices

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Targets Feedback background

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What is feedback? (Wiggins, 2004)

• Feedback is information about what was and was not accomplished, given a specific goal.

Feedback: summative vs formative •  Summative feedback is a summary of students final output or performance, includes a grade or score •  It may help shape the next performance or process, but it is too late to play a part on the task being evaluated

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•  Formative feedback response to student work, while it is in progress •  - identifies strong and weak aspects of performance, gives suggestions for improvement •  - plays a part in ‘forming’ or shaping student response to the task being worked on •  - aims to draw out students’ best possible performance

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Targets

Your feedback practices

Some key feedback questions 1. What do we say to students about their work? 2. How do we say it? 3. Do they take any notice? 4. How much does it help their learning payoff? 5. How well does it relate to students’ evidence of achievement of the intended learning outcomes? 6. How efficient is it for us?

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Assessment methods in your courses?

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What formative feedback practices do you use in your courses?

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discussion questions 1. What feedback practices do you find to be effective in your courses (i.e. that promote student learning)? 2. What feedback-related problems do you experience in the courses that you teach?

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Targets Feedback background

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Feedback: student dissatisfaction

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Feedback: Student dissatisfaction • The literature shows students are dissatisfied with feedback in terms of: 1.  Lacking specific advice to improve 2.  Being difficult to interpret 3.  Having a negative impact on selfperception and confidence (Carless, 2006)

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Quality feedback

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Quality feedbacK:4 Criteria • 1. It must be timely • 2. It must be specific • 3. It must be understandable to the receiver • 4. It must allow the student to act on the feedback (refine, revise, practice and retry) (Wiggins, 1997)

• Feedback

is like fish, it goes off after a week.

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Sadler (1989) • Sadler identified three conditions necessary for students to benefit from feedback.

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To benefit from feedback students must: 1.  Possess a concept of the goal/standard or reference level being aimed for 2.  Compare the actual (or current) level of performance with that goal or standard 3.  Engage in appropriate action which leads to some closure of the gap (Sadler, 1989)

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The power of feedback (Sadler,1989)

It is closing the gap between where the students are and where they are aiming to be that leads to the power of feedback.

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Feedforward • Providing useful information to both the teacher and the student that will help them recognize where gaps in student learning are and use that data to move forward with the intent of closing the gaps.

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Feedforward • -feedback that is “forwardlooking so that it can improve students’ learning and enhance their future performance on assessed tasks.” How Assessment Supports Learning, Carless et al. (2006,)

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3 major feedback questions 1.  Where am I going? (the goals) = feedup 2. How am I going? = feedback 3. Where to next? = feedforward (Hattie and Timperley, 2007)

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(Hattie and Timperley, 2007)

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Focus on Formative Feedback (Shute, 2008), Review of Educational Research

• “The premise underlying most of the research conducted in this area is that good feedback can significantly improve learning processes and outcomes, if delivered correctly”.

Feedback which supports learning 1.  2.  3.  4. 

Is sufficient (in frequency; detail) Is provided quickly enough to be useful Focuses on learning rather than on marks Is linked to assessment criteria/expected outcomes 5.  Makes sense to students 6.  Is received by students and attended to 7.  Is acted upon to improve performance

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Targets

My feedback research

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Teacher written feedback on student essays

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Tokyo Woman’s Christian University

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Junior Composition - third-year Academic Writing class

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Junior Composition class

essay cycle

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essay topic: slang

36 Extract of essay first draft with teacher feedback (blue)

essay topic: slang

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Feedback end sheet

- attached to the first essay draft -  uses same criteria as the summative assessment for the final draft -  a writing guide for students -  a teaching tool

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research focus

Does the feedback feed forward? Students’ response to teacher feedback

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feedback intervention (FI) • Actions taken by an external agent to provide information regarding some aspect of one’s task performance. (Kluger & DeNisi, 1996)

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First draft

Final draft

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first draft (thesis statement)

final draft

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successful revisions (closing gaps)

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unsuccessful revisions (open gaps)

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Reasons for unsuccessful revisions? • Studies of second language writing show that ESL students are willing to follow closely the feedback provided by teachers, but such commentary “had the potential of miscommunicating and of being misunderstood.” (Lee & Schallert, 2008)

• “Students need to have both the ‘will’ and the ‘skill’ to be successful in classrooms.” (Pintrich & De Groot, 1990)

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My research concludes . . .

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•  Most revisions linked to the

feedback provided did lead to text improvement in final drafts (‘closing the gaps’) •  Supports empirical research that teacher feedback in multiple-draft classrooms does lead to improved student writing

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Conclusion

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We learn faster, and much more effectively, when we have a clear sense of how well we are doing and what we might need to do in order to improve. (Carless, 2006)

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Two questions for teachers to consider . . .

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• How well are you doing with the feedback you provide to students? • Does your feedback feed forward?

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Feedforward

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• Thank you for your time and attention

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References •  Carless, D. (2006). Differing perceptions in the feedback process. Studies in Higher Education, 31(2), 219-223. •  Gibbs, G. & Simpson, C. (2004-05). Conditions under which assessment supports learning. Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, Issue 1, 3-29. •  Hattie, J., & Timperly, H. (2007). The power of feedback. Review of Educational Research, 77(1), 81-112. •  Kluger, A. N., & DeNisi, A. (1996). The effects of feedback interventions on perfor•  mance: A historical review, a meta-analysis, and a preliminary feedback interven•  tion theory. Psychological Bulletin, 119(2), 254–284. •  Lee, G. & Schallert, D. (2008). Meeting in the margins: Effects of the teacher student relationship on revision processes of EFL college students taking a composition course. Journal of Second Language Writing, 17, 165-182. •  Pintrich, P.R., & DeGroot, E.V. (1990). Motivational and self-regulated learning components of classroom academic performance. Journal of Educational Psychology, 82, 33-40. •  Raaheim, A. (2006). Do students profit from feedback? Seminar.net, Vol. 2, Issue 2 •  Sadler, R. (1989). Formative Assessment and the Design of Instructional Systems. Instructional Science,18, 119-144. •  Shute, V. (2008). Focus on formative feedback. Review of Educational Research, 78(1), 153-189. •  Wiggins, G. (1997). Feedback: How learning occurs. In: E. E. Chaffee (Ed.), Assessing impact: Evidence and action (pp. 31–39). Washington, DC: American Association for Higher Education. •  Wiggins, G. (2004) . Assessment as Feedback. New Horizons for Learning, http::www.newhorizons.org.