Missouri MTSS Feedback August 2016 Page 1

Online Learning Materials: Feedback

The Missouri Multi-Tiered System of Support (MO-MTSS) website officially launched on July 1, 2016. The MO-MTSS is built around an integrated system of academic and social/behavioral supports. While ideally designed for teams of teachers to use, the online resources and materials housed on the website are designed to meet a wide range of learner needs across varying levels of support-universal, targeted, and intensive.

The online resources/materials are arranged around six key elements:

Leadership

Collaborative Culture and Climate

Effective Teaching/Learning Practices

Measurement and Assessment

Data-based Decision Making

Student, Parent, Family, and Community Engagement

Within Effective Teaching/Learning Practices, you will find an online, interactive course on Feedback. This document outlines that course. Feedback presenter materials can also be found at http://www.moedu-sail.org/feedback-materials/ or with the other effective teaching/learning practices under the Facilitator Materials tab. Feel free to use both types of materials to further enhance and reinforce your learning.

In This Course:

Overview

Feedback Pre-Assessment

Overview and Unpacking

What Makes Effective Feedback

Evaluative and Descriptive Feedback

Case Studies

Levels of Feedback

Closing and Follow-Up

Course Summary

For More Information

Feedback Post-Assessment

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Feedback

http://www.moedu-sail.org/courses/feedback/

Feedback is information…

“Provided by an agent (e.g. teacher, peer, book, parent, self/experience) regarding aspects of one’s performance or understanding” (Hattie & Timperley, p. 81, 2007).

Effective feedback contains specific, contextualized information in response to the learner’s actions or thinking. The purpose of using effective feedback is to close the gap between what the learner understands and the learning goal. Vygotsky called this type of feedback scaffolding—where the learner is supported to think, reflect and do.

Feedback is a critical and natural component of the instructional process. When teachers provide students with effective feedback, they help students build confidence, increase student effort and motivation, reduce frustration during learning, and most importantly provide important information about the learning task to help students succeed.

Course Outcomes

This online learning package was developed for classroom teachers. Inside, you will discover

The role of feedback and its impact on student learning achievement. Different types and levels of feedback used by teachers. Strategies for effective feedback implementation.

Reflective Questions

Questions to ask yourself as you begin thinking about Feedback:

Why should I be concerned about “Feedback”? How am I currently providing “Feedback” to my students? Do I think my “Feedback” is effective? How do I know?

Feedback Pre-Assessment

http://www.moedu-sail.org/lessons/feedback-pre-assessment/

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Feedback: Overview and Unpacking

http://www.moedu-sail.org/lessons/what-is-feedback/

The main purpose of feedback is to reduce discrepancies between current understanding or

performance and some desired level of performance or goal.

What Does the Research Say?

Academic feedback is more strongly and consistently related to achievement than any other teaching behavior. This relationship is consistent regardless of:

Grade, Socioeconomic status, Race, or School setting (Bellon, Bellon, & Blank, 1991).

“The most powerful single modification that enhances

achievement is feedback. The simplest prescription for improving

education must be dollops of feedback.” ~Hattie, 1992

Effective feedback leads to immediate impact on results, which leads to lower failures, which leads to better attendance and fewer suspensions (Reeves, 2009). Students need time to actually discuss and apply. For example, in basketball, you don’t wait until end of game to see what the score is, you have timeouts during the game to discuss ways to improve results.

Just a small amount of on-going, descriptive feedback will help students understand:

1. What they need to know and to do next, 2. Where they need to go, and 3. How to reduce the discrepancies between their current understanding and their desired

goal.

While feedback can have a significant impact on student learning, not all feedback is effective.

Overview of Feedback

Feedback is information provided by an agent (e.g. teacher, peer, book, parent, self/experience) regarding aspects of performance or understanding.1 Feedback should be based on visible evidence. It is not a judgment or opinion. Feedback helps learners to attempt improvement because it derives from and addresses their intent to accomplish a specific thing.

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Feedback in the Classroom

The focus of this module is to help teachers improve their use of feedback during instruction to

help students understand—where am I going? How am I going? And where to next?

Group and individual feedback discussions can help learners reflect and understand how to use learning goals and task criteria for understanding their progress toward the learning goal. The following video is an example of feedback in action that reflects the three major questions. The video includes teachers across age levels (five year old classroom, elementary classroom) who provide direct instruction focused on feedback.

Unpacking Feedback

Where Am I Going?

Students need to have a clearly defined goal or target in each learning experience. They need to understand what success looks like to be able to answer the question, “Where am I going?”

Nature of learning intentions/goals/targets o Transparent o Communicated o Moves from where students are o Includes success criteria o Challenge o Commitment

Feedback then relates to reaching success on the learning intentions –reducing the gap

How am I going?

To help the student proceed, the teacher may need to differentiate instruction.

Providing feedback relative to the learning intention o in relation to some expected standard, o to prior performance, and/or o to success or failure on a specific part of the task.

Information about progress and how to proceed. Relative to

o Curriculum progression, o Personal bests, and o Comparative effects.

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Where to next?

Often teachers forget about the student who needs to be challenged; how do we build learning for all students? Students should be owners of their learning.

Enhanced challenges More self-regulation over the learning process Greater fluency and automaticity Different strategies and processes to work on the tasks Deeper understanding Information about what is and what is not understood. A common conception of progression A teacher's answer to a student should never be “more”

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Feedback in Practice: What Makes Feedback Effective?

http://www.moedu-sail.org/lessons/makes-feedback-effective/

Feedback in Practice

Hattie and Timperley (2007) recommend that teachers create a learning environment where feedback is given in an appropriate, meaningful way. Teachers should create a classroom climate that allows for errors to be opportunities for learning because in these environments error-leading-to-learning is powerful.

The positive learning environment should also allow for risk-taking, where students—even when they are unsure of their knowledge or “correctness” of their responses—will actively participate and persist through challenges. When students feel threatened in a climate prioritizing being correct, students tend to respond in limited ways; and only when they are fairly sure that they are correct. This often indicates they have already learned the answer to the question being asked.

So the key to thinking about the classroom climate and feedback is to ensure that errors are opportunities for learning…where students and teachers learn from their mistakes. When this notion is welcomed as an important part of learning, it allows students to maximize their learning and teachers to maximize their teaching.

Frequency of Feedback

The amount of feedback will vary from student to student and from task to task. The importance is the quality of the feedback that is provided. Susan Brookhart says, “Not too much, not too little, but just right” (2008). Students need to get enough feedback so that they understand what to do but not so much that the work has been done for them. Feedback should be:

just in time, individualized information, and delivered when and where it can have the most effect.

How often does a student receive feedback in your classroom on a typical day? Think of the learning in your classroom; this will determine the feedback opportunities for your students.

“Feedback can be very powerful if done well. The power of formative feedback lies in its dual-impact approach, addressing both cognitive and motivational factors at the same time. Good feedback gives students information they need so they can understand where they are in their

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learning and what to do next—the cognitive factor. Once they feel they understand what to do and why, most students develop a feeling that they have control over their own learning—the motivational factor.” 1

Amount of Feedback There is such a thing as too much feedback.

Keys to Effective Feedback

Goal Referenced What is the learning target you are giving the

feedback around?

Tangible and Transparent Is the feedback given honestly, and is it something

that they can see or hear?

Actionable What can the student do because of the feedback?

User-Friendly Is the language and learning target appropriate for

the student?

Timely Is feedback given as the student is working, not

after they are finished?

Consistent Is language, consistent from student to student,

teacher to student?

Ongoing Is the student given more feedback the next time

they are working on the same skill?

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Examples Visit http://www.moedu-sail.org/lessons/makes-feedback-effective/ for video examples of feedback in practice. Types of Feedback Descriptive feedback is better than evaluative feedback.

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Feedback in Practice: Evaluative and Descriptive

http://www.moedu-sail.org/lessons/evaluative-descriptive-feedback/ Types of Feedback

Evaluative Feedback, (e.g., percentage marks, letter grades) and frequent evaluation can have a negative impact on learning and motivation. 1 Even praise, when focused on characteristics of the learner rather than on the characteristics of the work, can have the opposite of the intended effect. 2

Tells learners how they compare to others Provides a judgment summarizing the quality of the learning Is a direct result of summative assessment

Descriptive Feedback helps students to learn by providing information about their current achievement (Where am I now?) with respect to a goal (Where am I going?) and identifying appropriate next steps (How can I close the gap?). 3

Provides specific information in the form of written comments or conversations Helps the learner understand what he or she needs to do to improve Is a crucial part of formative assessment

Evaluative is summative, a grade. Descriptive is formative, either can be verbal or written.

Determine whether the feedback statements below are examples of DESCRIPTIVE or EVALUATIVE feedback. Take the online quiz on this page to see if you’re answers are correct.

1. Try harder next time 2. You maintained eye contact throughout your entire speech; now you might work on your

enunciation. 3. You solved the equation; however, you need to include a written or visual explanation. 4. Your grades on this midterm assessment were much higher than last year’s class. 5. You made some simple mistakes on your timeline. Make sure that your time intervals are all the

same length. 6. Your writing has definitely improved. 7. You made some errors on your graph. Go back and check the names of your title, x-axis, and y-

axis. 8. 89% B+ Good Work! I am proud of you. You should be thrilled at your progress. 9. You are so close to proficiency. With a little more work you should be at a level 3. 10. Messy! 11. Your topic sentence is clear; your next step might be to add concrete details to support it.

Missouri MTSS Case Studies August 2016 Page 10

Feedback in Practice: Case Studies

http://www.moedu-sail.org/lessons/feedback-in-action/ Case Study #1 (younger student) The student read, “Me and my cousin are sleeping over”

Reflective Questions

1. The student who wrote this is in kindergarten. Can you provide descriptive, informative feedback to the student? What would you say?

2. What if the student who wrote this was in 4th grade? Can you still provide positive descriptive feedback? What would you say to the older student?

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Case Study #2 (Older Student)

Reflective Questions

1. The student who wrote this is in 4th grade. Can you provide descriptive, informative feedback to the student? What would you say?

2. What if the student who wrote this was in 11th grade? Can you still provide positive descriptive feedback? What would you say to the older student?

Missouri MTSS Case Studies August 2016 Page 12

Questions concerning teacher feedback to students

The following word chart (downloadable from http://www.moedu-sail.org/lessons/feedback-in-

action/) can be used to observe other teachers and it can also be used as a guide as you consider your

own classroom practice regarding feedback. For example, consider the following scenario. A student is

failing science and has been described by the science teacher as “unmotivated.” The student does well

in all of his other classes. During fidelity checks by the supervisor and fellow teachers, it has become

apparent there are concerns regarding the feedback that is provided to the student in the science

classroom. You can use the Word document below, Questions for Data Teams Concerning Teacher

Feedback to Students, to think about the kinds of feedback that might help motivate the student in

science.

If you were the science teacher, which questions do you think might be the most important to consider? Why do you think that?

How might a supervisor or colleague use the Questions for Data Teams to coach the science teacher towards more effective feedback?

Are there additional elements that might need to be considered?

Observed Not Observed

Is the learning intention stated or displayed in the classroom for each piece of work?

Does the teacher provide rubrics and work examples as success criteria for students?

Does the teacher seek feedback from many sources (exit slips, common formative assessments, observation, etc.) to identify specific deficiencies when the student is having difficulty learning a new skill or task in an attempt to understand why the student is making the error(s)?

When providing feedback, does the teacher question the student’s background knowledge first to be able to move the student from the known to the unknown?

Does the teacher correct the students’ errors immediately upon noticing the error instead of later?

When the teacher provides feedback, is he/she clear, descriptive, specific, and brief concerning a skill or task?

Is the teacher feedback criterion-referenced (tells the student how they perform in relation to an established set of knowledge or skills) rather than norm-referenced (tells the students how they perform in comparison to other students)?

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Observed Not Observed

Does the teacher provide students with an explanation of what they are doing inaccurately and accurately?

Does the teacher prompt for the next step to further learning?

Does the teacher provide the student an opportunity to correct errors or to work on a task until he/she succeeds?

Does the teacher solicit feedback about his/her teaching methodology from the students such as: What should I stop doing? What should I keep doing? What should I start doing?

Examples Visit http://www.moedu-sail.org/lessons/feedback-in-action/ to watch videos that provide a variety of ways that specific feedback enhances teaching and learning experiences.

Missouri MTSS Feedback in Practice: Levels of Feedback August 2016 Page 14

Feedback in Practice: Levels of Feedback

http://www.moedu-sail.org/lessons/levels-of-feedback/

Levels of Feedback

According to Hattie and Timperley’s model, feedback can occur at four levels. Click the buttons

below to read more about each level of feedback.

Instructional Fit

To determine which level of feedback is most appropriate for a given situation, think about the student’s acquisition of new knowledge/skills. The type of feedback to provide is guided by the level of instruction and learning.

Task: Use task level feedback for new material. Process: Use process level feedback when student has some degree of proficiency. Self-Regulation: Use self-regulation level feedback when student has high degree of

proficiency.

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TASK Level Feedback

How well has the task been performed? Is it

correct or incorrect?

This level includes feedback about how well the task is being accomplished or performed, such as

distinguishing correct from incorrect answers,

acquiring more or different information, or building more surface knowledge–re-teach

through multiple opportunities.

The art is knowing when to add in/move to feedback about the processes, and when the student has sufficient task knowledge to begin to strategize. Make it simple until confidence in the knowledge begins to build.

PROCESS Level Feedback

What are the strategies needed to

perform the task? Are there alternative

strategies that can be used?

Feedback specific to the processes underlying the tasks or relating and extending tasks. Such feedback concerns information about:

relationships among ideas, students’ strategies for error detection, explicitly learning from errors, and cuing the learner to different strategies and error.

Missouri MTSS Feedback in Practice: Levels of Feedback August 2016 Page 16

SELF REGULATION Level Feedback

Self-monitoring, directing, monitoring the

processes and task. What is the conditional

knowledge and understanding needed to

know what you are doing?

“The way students monitor, direct, and regulate actions towards the learning goal. […] There are at least six major aspects of [self-regulation], including:

the capability to create internal feedback and to self-assess,

the willingness to invest effort to seek and deal with feedback information,

the place of self-assessment, the degree of confidence in the

correctness of the response, the attributions about success or

failure, and the level of proficiency at help-seeking.” (Hattie & Timperley, 2007).

Strategies

Self-consequences: Putting off pleasurable events until work is completed (effect size = 0.7).

Self-instruction: Self-verbalizing the steps to complete a given task (0.6). Self-evaluation: Checking work before handing in to teacher (0.6). Help-seeking: Using a study partner (0.6). Keeping records: Recording of information related to study tasks (0.6). Rehearsing and memorizing: Writing a math formula down until it is remembered (0.6). Goal-setting/planning: Making lists to accomplish during studying (0.5). Reviewing records: Reviewing class textbook before going to lecture (0.5). Self-monitoring: Observing & tracking one’s own performance and outcomes (0.5). Task strategies: Creating mnemonics to remember facts (0.5). Imagery: Creating or recalling vivid mental images to assist learning (0.4). Time management: Scheduling daily studying and homework time (0.4). Environmental restructuring: Efforts to select of arrange the physical setting to make

learning easier (0.2).

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SELF Level Feedback

Personal evaluation and affect about the

learner. Also sometimes referred to as "non-

contingent" feedback.

Ever present and almost useless (and can be counterproductive). It is praise that directs attention away from the task to the self:

rarely about the task, and contains little task-related information.

Praise directed to the effort, self-regulation, engagement, or processes relating to task/performance.

Vignettes

Read the following vignettes of students responding to the same question. Which level of

feedback would you provide to each of the students: task, process, or regulation feedback?

Teacher: How would you describe the steps to carry out an experiment on how temperature

affects the dissolving of sugar in water?

Student 1

First, I would prepare two beakers of water at different temperatures. Then, I would take a

teaspoon of sugar and add it into each beaker. The sugar will dissolve faster in the hotter

beaker of water.

Type of Feedback Provided: ______________________

Student 2

I would have five beakers, each containing 100 mL of water. I would keep the temperature

of each beaker of water at 20ºC, 30ºC, 40ºC, 50ºC and 60ºC. Then, I add 1 g of sugar to each

beaker and stir until all the sugar has dissolved. For each beaker, I will time how long it

takes for the sugar to dissolve. Then, I will plot a graph and this will show that the hotter the

water, the shorter the time for dissolving the sugar.

Type of Feedback Provided: ______________________

Missouri MTSS Feedback in Practice: Levels of Feedback August 2016 Page 18

Student 3

I would measure equal volumes of water into two beakers. For one beaker, I will keep it at

room temperature. The other beaker of water will be heated to boiling at 100 ºC. Then, I

will add equal amounts of sugar and stir until all the sugar has dissolved. The boiling water

will dissolve the sugar faster.

Type of Feedback Provided: ______________________

Feedback Post-Assessment

http://www.moedu-sail.org/lessons/feedback-post-assessment/

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Feedback: Closing and Follow-Up

http://www.moedu-sail.org/lessons/feedback-closing-follow/

Feedback in Action

What would effective feedback look like in your classroom?

Now it’s time to think about what effective feedback looks like in your classroom. You will first want to Create an Action Plan for implementing effective feedback. A template is provided to support this planning. Then you will want to think about evidence and activities to support your action plan.

Whether you are beginning to develop an understanding of feedback or whether you feel fairly confident you could teach someone else about effective feedback, there are some activities recommended below to support putting effective feedback into action:

Video tape yourself teaching, and review the video using the Questions Concerning Teacher Feedback to Students This will enable you to examine your practices and students’ responses to your feedback.

When planning a lesson, theme, or unit intentionally consider feedback structures that will assist you in implementing user-friendly, just in time feedback, such as providing rubrics to learners for ensuring clear learning targets and criteria.

Collaborate with a colleague to observe each other teaching. Focus on the use of descriptive and evaluative feedback. Coach one another to increase the use of descriptive feedback that exemplifies the seven key characteristics of effective feedback.

Reflect on your personal teaching context and the implementation of effective feedback by journaling about one student who may be struggling in your classroom. Consider your feedback and the student’s responses as you record, reflect, and plan next steps.

Missouri MTSS Closing and Follow-Up August 2016 Page 20

Use the Practice Profile and Implementation Fidelity Checklists as tools to support and monitor your practices, and as data to reflect on your action plan. Use the Feedback Action Plan to determine next steps. Click the images below to view the documents.

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Closing and Follow-Up

Course Summary

Feedback is an essential component of the teaching and learning process. Teachers use effective feedback to guide students from where they are towards the goal of the learning task. In this manner, feedback helps to answer the questions,

Where am I going? How am I going? Where to next? (Hattie & Timperley, 2007)

Feedback is specific information provided to the learner about the task or learning process in order to increase students’ understanding, effort, motivation, and/or achievement. Researchers have identified several key characteristics to ensuring your feedback is effective: goal-oriented, tangible and transparent, actionable, user-friendly, timely, ongoing, and consistent (Wiggins, 2012).

Next Steps Questions

Where to next?

Which activity have I chosen to guide my learning and implementation of effective feedback?

Where am I going?

Am I beginning, developing or proficient with implementing effective feedback consistently? What elements of effective feedback should be the focus of my action plan?

How am I going?

What reflective practices, self-checks or peer conversations will I schedule to record my progress toward the goal of implementing feedback effectively?

What evidence will demonstrate my progress?

Where to next?

Are there any other gaps I perceive to be present in my instructional practices with regards to feedback?

Missouri MTSS Closing and Follow-Up August 2016 Page 22

For More Information

Bellon, Jerry, Bellon, Elner, & Blank, Mary Ann. Teaching from a Research Knowledge Base: A Development and Renewal Process, New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1992.

Black & William, “Inside the Black Box: Raising Standards through Classroom Assessment” Phi Delta Kappan, October 1998.

Brookhart, Susan M. How to Give Effective Feedback to Your Students. ASCD, 2008.

Davies, Anne. “Involving Students in the Classroom Assessment Process” Ahead of the Curve: The Power of Assessment to Transform Teaching and Learning. Douglas Reeves, Editor. Solution Tree, 2007.

Jackson, Robyn R. Never Work Harder Than Your Students & Other Principles of Great Teaching. ASCD, 2009.

Marzano(1), Robert. Classroom Instruction that Works. ASCD, 2001.

Marzano(2), Robert. “Designing a Comprehensive Approach to Classroom Assessment.” Ahead of the Curve: The Power of Assessment to Transform Teaching and Learning. Douglas Reeves, Editor. Solution Tree, 2007.

Marzano(3), Robert. What Works in Schools: Translating Research into Action. ASCD, 2003.

Miser, W. Fred. “Giving Effective Feedback”

“Providing Students with Effective Feedback” Academic Leadership LIVE: The Online Journal; Volume 4, Issue 4, February 12, 2007.

Reeves, Douglas. “Challenges and Choices: The Role of Educational Leaders in Effective Assessment.” Ahead of the Curve: The Power of Assessment to Transform Teaching and Learning. Douglas Reeves, Editor. Solution Tree, 2007.

Stiggins, Rick. “Assessment for Learning: An Essential Foundation of Productive Instruction.” Ahead of the Curve: The Power of Assessment to Transform Teaching and Learning. Douglas Reeves, Editor. Solution Tree, 2007.

“Synopsis of ‘The Power of Feedback’” by Center on Instruction, 2008. [Hattie & Timperley’s research]

Wiggins, Grant. Educative Assessment: Designing Assessments to Inform and Improve Student Performance. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Inc., 1998.