Providing+Feedback

Providing Feedback = = =Read and Reflect=


 * The purpose of providing feedback in the classroom is to show the students how they are progressing as they are learn the content for the year. It is also a way for students to see how they are meeting the standards that I have put out for them.
 * The most frequent type of feedback that students in my classroom receive is seeing the grades that they received on their homework. Generally, they do not see these assignments until they are handed their Friday Folders during the final 10 minutes of the school day on Friday. I should know how important providing feedback is because they all eagerly devour their folders examining the grades that they have earned on each assignment. They are excited to see high scores and disappointed when they see the lower scores. It probably would be a good idea to show student their work earlier, but this system ensures that most of the work gets home for parents to review.
 * Currently,what makes feedback useful to my students is by learning how it impacts their bottom line or their grade. Not very often do I see the feedback I provide being digested and applied so that students improve unless they are attempting to improve their grades. That doesn't seem very purposeful or useful. The feedback is provided once the "damage" is done and the assignment is turned in.
 * Questions about providing feedback...
 * Where is the time to provide useful feedback?
 * In what ways can feedback be given that address student needs BEFORE an assignment is turned in and graded?

In terms of tests and quizzes, I try to have those back to students within one to two days from the day the test was given. When I hand the tests back, the students will ask me question based on the ones that they got wrong, but we do that as a whole group. No one receives really direct review with me. This may be a missed opportunity, but I am so eager to move forward to the next unit and I feel as if that unit is finished. I should probably think of test as taking two days. One day to take the test and another to reteach big ideas that the class missed as a whole and meet with small groups who missed similar questions. Maybe that little extra time will help clear up any confusion and embed the ideas one last time before we move on. It is possible that by giving up one more day, I will be gaining time in student concept retention.

I have just begun involving the students in the creation of rubrics. It probably is not a bad idea to have students self-assess themselves before I assess them. It may provide an opportunity for us to have discussions about where my opinion of their work varied greatly from their opinion of their work. It might also be a time that we could agree on areas that the student could improve upon. Once again another time where I should probably slow down and focus on the now for the good of the future.

Just today I believe I successfully provided students with some feedback. Currently they are learning about the five different regions within the United States: Northeast, Southeast, Midwest, Southwest, and West. Instead making students complete a worksheet, I am having them draw images that represent that region, write What the Region IS...., and write What the Region IS NOT... I'm trying to reach all types of learns with this activity. The students helped create the rubric and they have to complete this "worksheet" for each region. Today, I handed back the their grades on the first three regions. Some students saw how they began strongly and ended weakly. Other students saw that they were missing some facts and thus were losing points. It was really stunning to see how some students stayed consistent with the type of quality that they were handing in while other student work steadily declined. I hope that the moment of feedback today helped to motivate students to really buckle down and follow the rubric on their final two regions.

=Apply and Reflect=

An example of a technology tool that would help me with providing feedback is Vocaroo. I LOVE this. It was so easy to just sit down and provide a short snippet of feedback to a student. There is so little time in the day to really sit down and talk with a student about something they can fix or give them a reminder to use a certain tool. Other students have teacher radar and they can see that as soon as you are getting really specific with a student, they need to ask you a question or go to the bathroom, or go to their locker, or some other thing that is not so important, but they HAVE to ask you right this minute. So often, I get home and realize I didn't talk to this student about this and that student about that. This tool would change all of that! I could sit at my desk after school where there would be ZERO interruptions and provide students with insightful feedback and suggestions. It took no time at all and re-listening to the message, I thought I am good! This would really help students and their parents get to know what I am looking for in quality work. I really like how this worked in terms of helping the student improve upon his project. Often times during the school day, I can give things a quick glance, but not really look it over. Using this tool would allow me to do just that!

media type="file" key="vocaroo_reviewofcollage.wav" width="300" height="50"