February 01st, 2021

Feedback: the Gateway to Student Success

Have you ever run into a former student out in public like the grocery store, or a concert?  Most likely, that student shared a memory with you about something that you said to them or how you showed them support.  Providing feedback is a powerful way to influence a student’s thinking, achievement, and progression of learning with content as well as non-academic components that attribute to student success. Feedback as defined by Hattie and Timperley, “Feedback relating to actions or information provided by an agent (teacher, peer, book, parent, internet, experience) that provides information regarding aspects of one’s performance or understanding” (2007). It is timely, specific, and corrective. For example,  “You paid attention to detail and used appropriate inverse operations to find solutions. You seem to be having some trouble with outlining your steps in a sequential way. This video might be helpful. We will continue to work on this together until you have it mastered!” in lieu of “Good job, or you need to fix your assignment”.  Hattie’s work on effect size describes .40 as the “hinge point” for identifying what is effective in the effort to advance a student’s achievement. The effect size of feedback is 0.66, showing positive results in student growth and learning (Hattie, 2018). 

Providing corrective feedback paired with processes information is even more impactful. This feedback structure should address three questions for learners(Fisher et al., 2021).

• Where am I going?
  
• How am I going there? 
  
• Where will I go next?
  

When teachers encourage and guide students with feedback, students are supported in the journey of knowing what success looks like, how they might address the inconsistencies between implementation and success, and moving their thinking and actions forward. 

For more information on tech tools to support giving virtual feedback, visit Jeffco Ed Tech Blog, Fine Tune Your Feedback With Digital Tools. ​