The Feedback Loop

This series of posts will cover a variety of bite-sized strategies that can be incorporated into a more holistic feedback system. To learn more about the research behind these approaches, we recommend you first read our white paper . Most of us have experienced that moment where you pass back papers, full of rich and detailed feedback, and watch a student walk out of class and drop it in the recycling. It's hard not to take it personally. Why do some of our students struggle so much with receiving and using feedback?

When students provide feedback to each other on presentations, do you wonder: How do I help students give each other meaningful feedback? How do I keep all students engaged during presentations and presentation feedback? One solution to both of these challenges is assigning feedback roles . Roles during practice presentations For team presentations, I have students practice and give feedback with another team. For the team presenting, all team members stand and present as if it were the real thing. For the team giving feedback, each person focuses on a different aspect of presentation feedback. Here are roles I've used for 3-4 people teams: Content - Provide feedback on the content of the presentation Presentation Skills - Observe and provide feedback on presentation skills and slide design Timer - Write down the times for each part of the presentation (or video tape it!) If you provide each role feedback guidelines, like a checklist, questions, or rubric, it can

A great peer review assignment is open-ended. A closed-ended question is a closed door. Open-ended assignments are an invitation to think critically and creatively about a topic. There is a time and place in instruction and assessment for closed-ended questions – we need to know what our students can recall and understand before we know they’re ready to move on to higher-order tasks. But the great assignments, the one’s we share with our colleagues and the ones that grow our students confidence, are open-ended. Vice Provost – Carlton University A great criteria is singular, challenging, and a bit subjective. As teachers, we are subject area experts. One of our tasks is to help our students become experts themselves. This means that we must clearly define for them what excellent work looks like. We do this with our assignment criteria. By distilling our assignments down to smaller, bite-sized tasks, we can bring the focus in on one, single criteria. Our instruction and feedbac

Over winter break, Floop co-founder Melanie and I had the privilege of talking with prominent feedback researcher Dr. Naomi Winstone . Her research has discovered that feedback interventions all seem to target at least one of four metacognitive skills, described by the SAGE process, and hypothesizes that a holistic approach to developing feedback systems should target all four of the skills: S elf-Appraisal: judging one's abilities A ssessment Literacy: understanding the grading process, standards, and criteria G oal-Setting & Self-Reflection: being goal-oriented and monitoring progress to meet outcomes E ngagement & Motivation: having an attitude of receptiveness to performance information Essentially, for feedback to reach that level of effectiveness that we've heard from experts like  Hattie & Timperly , students need to be motivated to engage with feedback and have the  feedback literacy  skills to use it, and the instructional environment must g