Helpful, Learning-Focused Feedback

(Originally titled “Preventing Feedback Fizzle”)

From the Marshall Memo #451

In this Educational Leadership article, author/consultant Susan Brookhart says that effective feedback is:

• Based on a learning target and success criteria – This gives purpose to the feedback; otherwise, it comes across as the teacher telling the student what to do. “If students do an assignment simply because you asked them to, that’s compliance,” says Brookhart. “Compliance is reactive, not proactive. Of course, students should do what you ask, but they won’t learn much unless they understand why you’re asking.” Students need a user-friendly description of what they’re going to learn, how they’re going to demonstrate proficiency, and the criteria for mastery.

• Linked to clear criteria – “When the learning target and the performance of understanding don’t match exactly and the criteria aren’t clear, students often experience feedback as evaluation or grading rather than information for improvement,” says Brookhart. 

• Timely – “It arrives while the student is still thinking about the work and while there’s still time for improvement,” she says.

• Descriptive of the work, not the student personally – The feedback mentions strengths to build on, weaknesses that can be improved, and gives at least one suggestion for a next step. 

• Clear and specific – It shows what to do next, but leaves the student with some thinking to do. 

• Differentiated – It meets individual students’ needs, giving the appropriate amount of support. 

• Followed by the opportunity to digest, understand, and use it – “Feedback can’t be left hanging,” says Brookhart; “it can’t work if students don’t have an immediate opportunity to use it… Feedback ‘so they know better next time’ is a waste of energy.” The follow-up work should happen before grades are given. 

Brookhart includes a description of how not to structure feedback. A middle-school language arts teacher tells students that their learning target is “summarizing nonfiction text” and gives them a packet with a chapter in their social studies text divided into five sections, with space under each for students to write summaries. She reminds students that a summary restates the big ideas of the text, leaving out details, and says they will know they have succeeded when they can write their own summaries of chapter segments using those criteria and earn at least 75%. After students finish, they hand in their work and the teacher follows up with thoughtful, hand-written feedback on each paper with suggestions for next steps. Then she moves on to the next lesson. Here’s what Brookhart says makes this lesson a “double fizzle”:

• The teacher didn’t provide a clear target. “Summarizing nonfiction text” isn’t a daily learning target; it’s a major skill spanning several years. A better learning target might be, “I can summarize information on ecosystems from my textbook, and I’ll know I can do it when I can put all the important ideas in a single paragraph.”
• Students didn’t get criteria for proficient summarizing. Attaining at least 75% is an evaluative criterion that doesn’t help students as they write their summaries. 
• Students didn’t get examples or models of proficient summaries.
• The teacher’s helpful feedback was summative, given after the exercise was finished. It would have been much more helpful if she had stopped students after they wrote their first summary, given them detailed feedback, and then had them apply what they learned to the other four passages. 

“Preventing Feedback Fizzle” by Susan Brookhart in Educational Leadership, September 2012 (Vol. 70, #1, p. 24-29), www.ascd.org; Brookhart is at susanbrookhart@bresnan.net.