Video

Video transcript

Presenter intro: Harry Fletcher-Wood

Providing feedback to pupils can have a positive impact on learning, but it can be hard to get feedback right. Teachers need to think carefully about what feedback they’ll provide and why. Feedback can show pupils how to improve on a specific task and develop their understanding of the subject. When teachers give effective feedback, pupils learn more.

Presenter main

Effective feedback focuses on how pupils can improve. It provides them with clear guidance on what they can do to develop their knowledge and understanding of a subject. Ultimately, we want pupils to be successful without the support of a teacher. We want pupils to go from dependence to independence. Feedback can help.

You need to think carefully about how you design and deliver feedback. Feedback should be specific. It should focus on specific actions that pupils can understand and use. Specific feedback can also be more manageable for both pupils and teachers. Lengthy written feedback can be difficult for pupils to read, and it takes teachers a lot of time to create. Feedback that’s short and precise can be better for both pupils and teachers.

Feedback also needs to support pupils to improve in future learning. It’s a good idea to design feedback that’s linked to both the specific task in hand and a more general concept that pupils will encounter on a different task.

A lot of the feedback that teachers give will be specific to a task. For example, they may say you need to rewrite your answer to question three, remove the brackets by multiplying by two. This will help pupils to address a specific mistake in a specific task, but they might not remember to apply this feedback the next time that they’re simplifying equations. Transfer from one context to another is hard, even when the problems are very similar. On the other hand, a teacher might give more general feedback like, remember to write formally in business letters. This is a strategy that they can apply beyond this task. However, it might not tell them which specific area they need to correct such as removing abbreviations like it’s. Therefore, feedback that combines a specific action that they can apply to the task in hand, along with a more general approach that they can apply to similar types of problems, can help.

In order to design feedback that is both specific and general, teachers can ask themselves a number of key questions. First, what’s the specific mistake that pupils have made on this task? Second, what underlying concept is this mistake linked to? And third, can I design feedback that improves both the specific task and their understanding of the underlying concept?

An example of this might be where pupils have made a mistake when writing formal prose. Take a look at this example of a pupil’s work. The specific error is that they’ve used the contraction "thanks" instead of "thank you." The underlying concept that this mistake is linked to is that they should use formal writing for business letters. And that formal writing has a number of conventions, including the avoidance of contractions. Feedback that improves this task and pupil understanding of the underlying concept might look like this. "Do not use the contraction thanks. Use full words in formal writing to sound more precise". Here, the feedback gives the pupil something specific to correct, but it also reminds them of the more general underlying concept of formal writing. When they write another formal letter, this may help them to remember to avoid the use of contractions.

There may of course be times when specific direct feedback that focuses solely on the task in hand is appropriate. This will depend on the content and the learner. For example, when pupils are in the early stages of learning about the column subtraction method, it’s useful to focus feedback on this specific strategy first. Pupils will need to know the specific concrete steps for this method first, before teachers start to link it to more abstract principles such as commutative property.

Another way of designing usable feedback is to design feedback that helps pupils to regulate their own learning. We want the feedback that we give pupils to improve future work, without continued teacher support. Teachers can provide feedback which encourages students to use a self-regulatory strategy such as plan, monitor, and evaluate. For example, a teacher might revisit the plan stage by showing them what good looks like, going through a good example of the column method again, drawing attention to the importance of borrowing one from the left. The teacher could then recall the monitor and evaluate strategies by comparing this example to the pupil’s work, highlighting where they went wrong and identifying the steps they need to take to improve their work. Feedback demonstrating this approach could encourage them to plan, monitor, and evaluate when they work on their own.

In terms of delivering feedback it’s important to be aware that pupils’ responses to feedback can vary depending on a range of social factors. Feedback needs to feel encouraging. Teachers can help to ensure that feedback will be received well by ensuring that they have solid foundations in place: a positive learning environment and a culture of mutual trust and respect between pupils and teachers. It also helps to explain why feedback is being given, reminding pupils that the purpose is to help them to achieve ambitious learning goals. Effective feedback can help pupils get better and should feel encouraging as a result. Equally, focusing on the work itself rather than the pupils’ personal strengths and weaknesses can make pupils more receptive to feedback and more likely to act on it. Instead of saying something like, "you’re normally great at writing, what’s going on here?" more specific feedback about the work would be more useful:"Before you write a sentence down, practice saying it in your head first."

With a better understanding of where pupils have gone wrong and why, and what feedback will help them to improve, you can go back and refine your approach to how you might deliver that feedback. That might mean a quick correction, reteaching, more time to practice, or perhaps a combination of all three.

Presenter exemplification framing

In the next example, you’ll see a model of preparing feedback for the whole class. As you watch, focus on the following:

• Prioritises the highlighting of errors related to misunderstandings rather than careless mistakes when marking
• Focuses on specific actions for pupils

Exemplification: Ambition Institute coach

For the purpose of this model, I want you to imagine that I am an English teacher. My year seven class have been writing short stories for creative writing. Understanding how to create appropriate and effective metaphors in creative writing is a key skill at teaching English. And I want my pupils to master it as part of the key stage three English curriculum.

Part of the success criteria that I set for the short story was to use at least three metaphors as comparative figures of speech within their writing.

I have read my pupils’ short stories, and one common misunderstanding I found is that the pupils are using similes instead of metaphors. Similes and metaphors are often confused with one another. A key difference between a simile and a metaphor is that a simile uses the words "like" or "as" to compare two different things in an interesting way, while a metaphor simply states the comparison without using "like" or "as". I want to make sure that my feedback helps them to improve on this task and similar upcoming tasks. So I’m going to ask myself a number of steps when planning my feedback.

Number one, what is the problem? Pupils are not using metaphors in their creative writing tasks. And in some instances are using similes instead.

Number two, what is an underlying concept which needs to be addressed? Understanding that metaphors can help make writing more vivid and concise.

Number three, what specific feedback can I give to address the error on this task? Identify where they can change a simile to a metaphor.

Number four, what feedback can I give about the underlying concept? Reminding pupils about the effect of using a metaphor.

“Right year seven, I’ve read through your short stories and I have to say, I was really impressed with how original some of the writing was. One thing that I think that we could improve is our use of metaphors to create a really clear image in our reader’s imagination. I did set this as one of our key criteria. And so we need to work on this a little bit more to make sure that we all get it right.

Remember, a metaphor is when we use one thing to describe another. we’re making that comparison. An example would be, the girl was a rose amongst the thorns. Here, the rose is being used to describe the girl. Suggesting that they have some of the same qualities like being beautiful, but also potentially causing harm. This one metaphor should create a really vivid image in our reader’s imagination, without using that many words.

I noticed that some of you used similes in your writing. Remember a simile is when we use "like" or "as" to compare two different things in an interesting way. An example of that would be, the girl was as sweet as a rose. A metaphor is different from a simile because a metaphor simply states the comparison without using "like" or "as". Using metaphors in our writing is a really concise way of creating a powerful image in our reader’s imagination, often in just a few words.

Right. Now I’m going to give you 10 minutes to complete the following task.

Step one, read through your story.

Step two, identify a simile that you’ve used and turn it into a metaphor, to create a powerful image more quickly.

So an example would be the simile, she danced like she was floating on air, turned into the metaphor, she floated on air when she danced.”

Let’s unpick this model. First, I prioritised my feedback on an important misunderstanding: the difference between similes and a metaphor, and the different impact they can have in creative writing. Pupils had made other errors too, like spelling errors, but I have a strategy in place that will support pupils to correct these themselves. I want to make sure that the feedback I’m providing to the whole class will help the majority of my pupils improve their work. This helps me to make the best use of my time and theirs.

Second, I designed my feedback carefully so that it focused on specific actions. As well as this, by linking the feedback to an underlying concept, I was drawing attention to the underlying structure of the problem. In this case, understanding the different impact that metaphors and similes can have in creative writing. This should help my pupils to correct their own work when they do similar tasks in the future.

And finally, I designed my feedback so that it was delivered verbally. This saves me a lot of time, as I’m not writing individual comments on my pupils’ work. During the lesson, I will be able to check that pupils understand the feedback by checking how they act on it.

Presenter key ideas

In this video, we’ve considered the impact that effective feedback can have, as well as some ideas about what to include in feedback. Before you finish, take a moment to read over the key ideas of the video. Which ideas do you think the model illustrated the best?

• Prioritise the highlighting of errors related to misunderstandings, rather than careless mistakes when marking
• Focus on specific actions for pupils and provide time for them to respond to feedback
• Use verbal feedback during lessons in place of written feedback after lessons where possible

Presenter summary

Feedback is something that teachers are likely to improve on the more that they know their subject and their pupils. When feedback is successful, pupils do better academically and take increasing ownership over their learning, both at school and beyond.