I use feedback to Encourage Effort
I've always felt like specific feedback had to be time consuming. In fact, I thought if it was not time consuming, it most likely was not specific.
Feedback on Behavior
Last year, I found myself scrambling to give students feedback on their behavior every day, for every part of the day. I would usually let too much time pass before completing behavior charts, and by then, I'd honestly forgot how that particular student did at that time of the day. A colleague introduced me to Class Dojo as a way for students to monitor their own behavior progress and get my specific feedback. Class dojo also records the trends of each student's behavior; both positive and negative. The cherry-on-top is that class dojo also reports this feedback to parents in real time! I made sure feedback was specific with this resource by personalizing the "blurbs" that are shown in the point system. Since effective feedback is relevant and provides guidance, I created statements that could serve as a reminder and a next step. I downloaded the mobile app on my phone and managed the behavior points of students all around the room right from my guided reading table.
Self -monitoring
Another way to give specific feedback is to give students a tool that helps them to monitor their reading progression over time. Since students need to be able to interpret their data for an understanding of how to improve data, having appropriately formatted feedback is important. Fluency bar graphs are a great way for students in the primary grades to monitor their progress and set new goals. Teaching intentional procedures like always using a rubric/checklist for writing activities, or switch & grade in math can serve as ways for quick ways for students to specifically assess themselves and others.
Peer-to-Peer Feedback
Students can be taught to give meaningful feedback to each other which can also serve as an extension of learning. Give students the proper tools (rubrics, exemplars, sentence stems, etc) to help them use academic and focused language in their feedback. Share aloud activities can be student-led through feedback and conversations. In math, students check a partners answers which almost always leads to students' justifying their answer or strategy. (Also a strong point of assessment data)
Here are some examples of tools students can use to give meaningful and specific feedback to their peers:
| key_details_and_main_idea_rubric.docx |
| how_to_check_your_answers.docx |
