Feedback is an Essential Part of Teaching
Learning how to provide effective feedback to your students is an easy way out of the positive/negative feedback trap. Hang on! What positive/negative feedback trap?
How does the Quality of Teacher Feedback Affect the Classroom?
We all know that using negative feedback to ‘guide’ student behavior can be harmful to students ~ especially younger children. I was taught that every single negative comment must be balanced with four genuine positives. Teacher feedback can determine the emotional climate in the classroom as well as our students’ feelings about themselves, and the student/teacher relationship.
Yet, the issue of feedback is more complex that positive/negative. Positive feedback that is too general, vague, or overflowing is not that effective. Likewise, negative feedback that is thoughtful and specific can be helpful. At the end of the day, however, positive and negative feedback are opposite sides of the same coin.
Praising students may seem helpful and supportive, yet, there is an underlying message that the praise could be swapped for criticism at any moment. Teachers who praise constantly or thoughtlessly run the risk of being seen as judgmental or just plain wrong. This type of emotional climate emphasizes the teacher’s view point rather than supporting the development of students’.
What is Effective Feedback?
Effective feedback gives a student information about how the work that they are doing relates to the learning goal. It is timely, specific, and focused. In order to be helpful to students, the feedback must be given in language they easily understand. Effective feedback is designed to guide students. It is not assessment or evaluation.
Teachers provide feedback until students have the skills, understanding, and experience to monitor their own performances. Providing skillful feedback is part of the gradual release of responsibility model, the framework designed to move students toward independent performance of tasks and learning goals.
Resources of Interest:
Teachers’ Use of Positive and Negative Feedback
10 Ways to Give Better Feedback
The Problem with Overpraising Children
Praise is not always a good thing. From Sports Psychology
Gradual Release of Responsibility
Why You Need to Understand Feedback Loops
How to Give Effective Feedback to Your Students Susan M Brookhart
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