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Ladder of feedback

In culture of learning, feedback is king. Supportive, respectful informative feedback is one that fosters reflection, understanding and motivation to develop. It trumps all marking systems, shifting attention from points/numbers/ letters that are little more than a value judgement, promoting growth mindset and acknowledging the learner's ownership of their learning process instead.

Mastering the art of giving (and receiving!) feedback is a challenge, as quite often we are tempted to resort to the good old 'well done' or 'great job" as feedback. Such feedback is sadly useless- it tells the student nothing, just conveys some positive emotions. Instead, we need to feed forward, so provide an extensive, clear rubric for an activity and then deliver specific information on the strong points, as well as areas in need of improvement, suggesting ways in which such improvement can be made.

One idea to give feedback is the ladder of feedback, where step by step we build a thorough analysis, starting with the most interactive part, where we ask students to clarify some points; moving on the appreciating the value of the assignment through detailed examples; voicing concerns regarding any areas in need of attention to finally provide suggestions for improvement. 

It might sound daunting and time consuming, but it is not, once your students are familiar with detailed rubric before embarking on the activity and you use a feedback template, for example this one, that you customize, copy and complete to feed the student very specific information on the quality of their work.

Try it, see the difference.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1boNYf2R2q6Zcu2TXeAy96scJVZPnFKDC/view?usp=sharing

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Comments

  1. BasiaJanuary 31, 2021 at 7:59 AM

    Hello! I love this ladder ! Will try it tomorrow . I guess I must be careful -suggestions must logically follow the concerns.A good exercise for the teacher to be really attentive��

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anna OrłowskaMarch 2, 2021 at 1:39 PM

    Thank you Basia:)

    ReplyDelete

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