This document discusses providing effective feedback for written submissions. It aims to answer important questions about maximizing feedback and using feedback time effectively. Some key points discussed include: - Feedback is most effective when it causes students to think and provides guidance on how to improve. - Feedback should focus on learning outcomes and criteria rather than just editing. - Feedback can have negative impacts if it demotivates students or sends mixed messages; it's important to move learning forward. - Involving students in assessing their own work and being trained as markers can help students own their learning.

1. Effective feedback for
written submissions

2. What are your biggest frustrations
about providing feedback?

3. Answer the “big questions”
Explore the hallmarks of effective feedback
Reflect on current feedback practices
Consider various (different?) ways of providing
effective feedback
• Enjoy the opportunity for professional learning
and dialogue
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GOALS FOR TODAY

4. THIS WORKSHOP AIMS
TO ANSWER BIG /
IMPORTANT QUESTIONS
For example:
How come cartoon
characters never
change their clothes?

5. If you put a
chameleon in a
room full of
mirrors, what
colour would it
turn?

8. Are we maximising the feedback
we are giving our students?
Are we using the time we take to
provide feedback effectively?
At the end of the day who is doing
the more work?
Or perhaps …

10. The person providing the
feedback is growing the
most dendrites

11. • We work hard
• We are time poor
• The more time we can save marking – the more time we
have to prepare meaningful & effective lessons
• Feedback is important!
Premises

12. Hattie’s metaanalyses &
influences on
Achievement

13. Activity:
RANK THESE 12 EFFECTS
 Open vs. traditional classes
 Video/Audio-visual methods
 Cooperative learning
 Individualised instruction
 Mentoring
 Shifting schools
 Homework
 Student-teacher relationships
 Feedback
 Acceleration
 Teachers challenging students
 Reading Recovery

14. ANSWERS:
Acceleration
.88 (1)
Feedback
.73 (2)
Student-teacher relationships
.72 (3)
Teachers challenging students
.64 (4)
Reading Recovery
.50 (5)
Cooperative learning
.41 (6)
Homework
.29 (7)
Video/Audio-Visual Methods
.22 (8)
Individualised instruction
.22 (9)
Mentoring
.15 (10)
Open vs. traditional classes
.01 (11)
Shifting schools
-.34 (12)

15. HOWEVER

16. Dylan Wiliam
• Did you know feedback can have negative
impacts?
• Indeed, Feedback is one of the most powerful
influences on learning and achievement, but
this impact can be either positive or negative:

17. One well known study:
• 264 low and high ability grade 6 students in 12 classes in 4 schools; analysis
of 132 students at top and bottom of each class
• Same teaching, same aims, same teachers, same classwork
• Three kinds of feedback: scores, comments, scores+comments
Achievement
Scores
Comments
Attitude
no gain
High scorers : positive
Low scorers: negative
30% gain
High scorers : positive
Low scorers : positive
Feedback has complex effects
[Butler(1988) Br. J. Educ. Psychol., 58 1-14]

18. Responses
Achievement
Scores
Comments
Attitude
no gain
High scorers : positive
Low scorers: negative
30% gain
High scorers : positive
Low scorers : positive
What do you think happened for the students given both scores
and comments?
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
Gain: 30%; Attitude: all positive
Gain: 30%; Attitude: high scorers positive, low scorers negative
Gain: 0%; Attitude: all positive
Gain: 0%; Attitude: high scorers positive, low scorers negative
Something else
[Butler(1988) Br. J. Educ. Psychol., 58 1-14]

19. Effective feedback needs to move
people forward!

20. Response type
Feedback indicates performance…
exceeds goal
falls short of goal
Change behavior
Exert less effort
Increase effort
Change goal
Increase aspiration
Reduce aspiration
Abandon goal
Decide goal is too easy
Decide goal is too hard
Reject feedback
Feedback is ignored
Feedback is ignored
Getting feedback right is hard

21. FEEDBACK
‘the student makes an emotional
investment in an assignment and
expects some “return” on that
investment’
- Higgins et al 2001, p272
“It’s not giving the assessments [that
is important]; it’s about doing
something with the results.”
- Douglas Reeves (2005)

22. DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
What do we currently say about student work?
How do we say it?
How much notice do they take?
How much does this feedback help them to actually
learn?
• How well does this feedback relate to students’
evidence of achievement of the intended learning
outcomes?
• How efficient is it for us?
• What do you find to be effective?
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23. DISCUSSION QUESTIONS CTD
• How do we stop students from seeing
feedback as little more than editing?
• How do we give students a clear message
about what they must do to improve
future work?
• In some cases students don't read or take
the advice that is given (and are not
required to do so). How might we require
them to do anything with this feedback?

24. • Key idea: feedback should
• cause thinking
• provide guidance on how to improve
• Comment-only grading
• Focused grading
• Explicit reference to mark-schemes and scoring guides
Feedback that moves
learning on

25. • When we mark do we give mixed messages?
• Dilemma: you have a glaring grammatical error in front
of you BUT this error does not relate to the criteria – do
you comment on it?
• How focused are we on the criteria?
Queries

26. • Suggestions on how to improve
• ‘Strategy cards’ ideas for improvement
• Not giving complete solutions
• Re-timing assessment
• (eg two-thirds-of-the-way-through-a-unit test)
Feedback that moves
learning on

27. • Students assessing their own work
• with rubrics
• with exemplars
• Students being trained as markers
Students as owners of
their learning