New Learning Reflection

Various Methods of Providing Feedback:

1.  Conferencing:

• Works better with smaller classes
• you can follow-up with the feedback that you have provided
• the feedback is immediate
• you can pinpoint what they are understanding, and at what point they are in their learning
• can have student show you what they will do with the feedback you have given–confirm their learning & understanding
• students are given multiple opportunities to revise and use feedback, and therefore can build onto the feedback you have already provided
• Con:  time consuming, in larger classes it’s difficult to get to all students

2.  Success Criteria Checklist/Written feedback on work:

• students can see which success criteria they are doing well in, and which ones they still need to work on (SC Checklist)
• more manageable time wise with larger classes
• Checklist helps guide the feedback, forcing us to stick to the Success Criteria
• students can go back to the feedback because it is stapled into their notebooks or written onto their work
• feedback is easily accessible to students in class
• Con:  don’t have the conversation with the student about how they will revise their work using the feedback
• Con:  more challenging for the students that don’t understand the success criteria and those who are struggling

3.  Using Google Docs:

• can highlight specific text in the documents and provide feedback (using comment function) that is specific to that text
• you can ask students questions about what they have written, challenging them to think about how to revise, rather than telling them what to write or do
• easier for students to edit and revise using the feedback
• students can ask questions about the feedback or reply to the feedback (using comment function)
• it’s a good tool for tracking editing/revision history–will track who has revised and what has been changed
• Con:  students don’t all have access to a computer or internet–in order to see the feedback, students need to log into their google accounts and revise on Google Docs
• Con:  you tend to provide more feedback than you would otherwise, therefore making this method more time consuming; you also tend to provide feedback on more than just the success criteria

Conclusions:

Weaker students will benefit more from written feedback combined with teacher-student conferencing.  This gives the teacher the opportunity to help students to apply the feedback, walking the student through the steps they need to take to apply the success criteria.

Continue to teach mini-lessons on each success criteria, creating anchor charts and posting student work samples as mentor texts.

Use guided (small group) conferencing to support students with common needs.  Choose groups based on which area of the achievement chart that they are struggling with or which success criteria are they struggling with.