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| Assessment. Google Images |
FEEDBACK! FEEDBACK! FEEDBACK!....
This notion is all the craze right now, specifically Descriptive Feedback! Teachers are learning the benefits behind giving detailed feedback throughout the course of students learning as opposed to the end/when the student hands an assignment in. No matter the subject, grade, or individual descriptive feedback is always beneficial! Now, I'm no expert in the topic but last year in my placement I did do a project for my cohort class on descriptive feedback. Also, I was only teaching mathematics so my descriptive feedback was directed towards this particular subject. I chose this topic because I was interested in it and I was interested in seeing how student's work would change as a result of it.How did I carry out descriptive feedback:
-I made time to check in with students work throughout their entire learning process.
-I had conferences with small groups and individual students to discuss their learning, strengths and next steps after an assignment, quiz, test or presentation was given.
-I wrote detailed comments on students work and let them know what they did well in and what they can work on for next time.
-I never wrote down student's averages on tests. Instead, I would give levels accompanied by detailed feedback/remarks.
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| Feedback. Google Images. |
Here is an awesome video explaining how descriptive feedback can promote conversations in math!
Likewise, within my placement, I had the opportunity to give multiple types of assessments for my students while teaching math. From an early onset, I learned how my students liked to work and how they liked to be assessed. Therefore, within my classroom, we did a lot of group work, anchor charts, presentations and mini projects. With every task assigned to the students myself and the class would co-create success criteria. This would ultimately become the marking scheme/checklist for when I would have to assess the students work. As well, the students knew exactly what was expected of them because they created the expectations as well as have them hanging in the classroom. I found this to be extremely beneficial for myself when marking and for my students learning.
As a result of teachers college, I have learned that assessment comes in all shapes and sizes. Long gone are the days of strictly quizzes, tests and unit tests. Students can participate in oral presentations or record themselves on iMovie and send it to the teacher. They can create posters and infographics online, highly advanced and interactive power points on Emaze, Powtoon, Google Slides and Prezi. Students can use interactive games, such as Kahoot and Plicker to test their knowledge through online, interactive multiple choice games. Students can work individually or in groups, receive feedback immediately and the teacher does not have to mark a thing. Students don't even know they are being quizzed half the time. They can be used as formative or summative pieces for assessment.
The opportunities are endless! Thus, it is important as future educators to familiarize ourselves with how to give appropriate and useful descriptive feedback as well as learn about the different technologies out there that can be used for assessment!
Here is a video showing the ways in which a teacher uses descriptive feedback to help reach all of her students.
Lastly, we were asked in our Math Mindset Module for this week to describe math in our everyday lives. I loved this question because it is an OPEN question and promotes creativity and critical thinking for our students. All students can provide an answer and explain a way in which they use math in their everyday lives. I stated three examples: cooking, shopping, and building. Someone else in our class (James) stated nature. I think this is an incredible observation because there are patterns in leaves, plants and the rings of trees. I would have never thought of this and it simply blew my mind. If we can challenge our students to think outside the box, look at math in their everyday lives and look at math having a purpose in our world, I truly believe they will understand it better and learn to love it.
Thanks so much for viewing my blog!
Cheers,
Courtney
Hi Courtney,
ReplyDeleteWow, there is so much energy in your post! You're clearly passionate about the subject of descriptive feedback. I like how you structured you descriptive feedback experiment with your students. I feel like having descriptive feedback and co-creating success criteria for your students is a winning combination. When I was in school, all I cared about what the number grade on my paper. If there was any descriptive feedback on my assignments in elementary and even high school, I would likely ignore it and look at how I did. It was only until university that I realized how important descriptive feedback was and how greatly its use improved my quality of work. With everything you've said above, I think that it is also super important to teach our students the value of descriptive feedback. Maybe one day we can get them to value that feedback more so than a final mark.
Great post!