Got Feedback?

The last piece in becoming a great learner is feedback. My last two posts, Learn from your Mistakes and Move On and If at First You Don't Succeed Try Try Again helped to set the foundation for what a great learner looks like and does to be successful. In this post, your students will take everything they have learned about open discussion, kindness, accountable talk, mistakes, and growth mindset and apply it to feedback. 

WHAT IS FEEDBACK?

Feedback is grading an assignment and

handing it back to the student right? No!

Feedback is JUST IN TIME, JUST FOR ME, & JUST WHEN AND WHERE IT DOES THE MOST GOOD.  To provide effective feedback you have to first build a classroom culture that is safe, trusting, and promotes positive relationships. Effective feedback will explode when it is OK for students to make mistakes and feel that mistakes are welcome.  The second step in effective feedback is having clear learning intentions and success criteria. Students have to understand what they are supposed to do to be able to understand the feedback and use it to accomplish the task. A little data for you provided by John Hattie. Feedback is a 0.75 effect size and if you remember to have a years growth in your classroom the influence or strategy needs to be a 0.40. Hmm... do I have your attention now?

FEEDBACK LESSON:

The following lesson and activities with take a couple of days to complete. 


To begin this lesson I opened up with the question, What makes a good learner? I wrote down what they said on an anchor chart. I then read Leo the Late Bloomer by Robert Kraus.  We discussed what Leo did to become good or better at the things that he thought he wasn't so good at. Then I would ask the following questions to spark a discussion on strengths and weaknesses. What are you strong and weak in? How do we grow our brain to be stronger in what we are weak in? 

Next, I would ask this question How do we take our weaknesses and make them strengths? I would then display the word feedback and ask your students if they know anything about this word or what they think it may mean. You can then introduce the topic of feedback by reading this story, Thanks for the Feedback by Julia Cook.

This story is about a little boy named RJ. When a couple of friends give RJ compliments, he isn't sure how to respond. And when he hears from his teach and parents that there are some things he needs to work on, he argues and makes excuses.

After a class discussion on feedback, now comes the model and practice part of the lesson.  You will give each student a picture of a real insect, animal or object. Next, ask your students to fold a blank piece of paper into 4 blocks. Ask your students to do their best to draw this insect in the first block of the paper. You will want to give some time for your students to draw.

                                         

Here comes the exciting part! Now ask your students within their table groups to tell each other how to make their illustration more realistic. All students need to give suggestions/feedback. Put down everything and Listen, Listen, Listen! You will be so surprised and excited to hear their discussions. I 💗this part!

Next,  complete a second draft of the insect and tell your students they have to use one piece of feedback that they received. After giving time for their second draft you will have your students watch a video on a little boy named Austin and his drawing of a butterfly. Make sure to have your students think about what they notice about what the other children are saying and doing to help Austin. 

TIP: I would post these questions somewhere close to where the video is shown so they can refer back to them as they watch the video. 

                                Austin's Butterfly: Vimeo

After the video, have chalk talk questions ready and placed around the room. Give each child 4-5 post-it notes and break them into groups. Read aloud the questions and ask them to write their answers on the post-it and place on each question as they rotate around the room. 

Example Chalk Talk Questions: What am I going to do with feedback?  What did you learn from Austin’s video?   How am I going to give feedback to others?   What does feedback sound like? What were the 3 things that really stood out and that you noticed?  

Bring your students back together and discuss some of their answers. 

TIP: 1. What you are wanting to look for or hear is that the video showed the children being Kind, Specific, and the information was Useful.  

Next, you will have your students return back to their seats and give their group feedback on their second draft. Remind your student's that their feedback should be kind, specific, and useful. It is not just praise. 

TIP: Praise is important but not a part of being specific and useful when giving feedback. I would give an example: "If I gave you back a test and you had made some mistakes and I wrote great job! Did I give you anything specific or useful to help direct you to your mistakes or how to grow as a learner? NO. So we need to specific and useful when we g Here you can have that discussion of not confusing praise with feedback. 

Then you will tell your students with the feedback from their second draft to draw their third draft.  

After, you have given time to draw their third draft you will hand out 1-2 more post-it notes to each student. You will ask your class to participate in a gallery walk with the post its and have them write feedback to their classmates about their third draft.  In a gallery walk, your students will walk around and look at each student's third drawing. 

Then, ask them to sit back down and read all of their feedback and use that feedback on the third to draw the fourth and final draft. Hand out 1-2 more post-it notes and ask your students to do one more gallery walk to give feedback reminding them to make sure it is kind, specific, and useful.  

Finally, have them choose their best and add color to that one. Your students should by this point be making connections between feedback and how their drawings improved each time. 

Lesson Closure:

Bring your class back together and have a discussion about the lesson. You could do another chalk talk where they answer the questions using a post-it note or you could write their answers under each question. Example Questions: What did you learn about feedback?  How can we use feedback in math, reading, and writing?  How can we apply it to every lesson?  How do see feedback making you a better learner? 

TIPS TO REMEMBER:

1. The picture doesn't have to be an insect can be any animal or real object. 

2. To save time especially for your little ones you may want to have the paper pre-folded.

3. Before having your students give feedback the first time you may want to review how everyone needs to talk. That this is not a 1 person activity in other words you want to see all students participating by looking and discussing each others drawing. 

4. As students are drawing you can have soft music playing. You will be walking around having discussions with students on how they are using the feedback to direct them.  You could use some of the above chalk talk questions to guide your discussions. 

5. You will want to block a large amount of time for this activity to be able to give it justice. I promise it is worth it. though!

6. Remember to refer to the lesson all year when your students are having a group discussion, helping each other with assignments, or when working on a project together. 

7. Don't forget about adding in the accountable talk stems to help with giving kind, specific, and useful information.

EXTRA RESOURCES:

I Noticed & I Wondered video from Teaching Channel.

This video is about 3 minutes long and shows a classroom of students critiquing each other's work by using I noticed and I wondered statements. I use this technique when I introduce a new topic and when we are looking at my work to model how to use specific and useful information. Using stems like I noticed gets your students saying things in a kind way and practicing giving specific information they noticed.  I love the I wonder stem because it is a kinder way to point out a mistake or to ask questions about another student's work. 

To keep practicing and modeling feedback you can make anchor charts like the one above for all subjects.   I would place these on rings so you could easily turn to them when they need a stem or extra support to give feedback.

I hope this helps in your journey of teaching feedback to your class. Remember the key to this lesson is to help your students know what to improve, and give them opportunities in the future to show they’ve improved.

Love this video from Will.I.Am to add to this lesson. It has a great message on getting stronger and not quitting. 

Never forget the purpose is to close the gap in a student's learning. 

What are the ways you teach feedback in your classroom? Please share your ideas in the comments section so we can all try them. 

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Thanks for stopping by!