LEARNING TO LEARN
Table 1 : Pros and cons of WCF outlined by various teachers online .
Pros
• Timely feedback .
• Students make more progress .
• Saves having to repeatedly write the same comment on student ’ s work .
• Can reflect more on overall class ’ performance .
• Students can easily find feedback later . -Race , ( n . d .)
• Decreases marking time by over a third .
• Greater opportunity given to model strengths and weaknesses to students . -Jones & Essery ( 2018 )
• WCF encourages pupils to discover errors for themselves , thus engaging with feedback more . -Enser ( 2017 )
• Makes students responsible for their own learning . - Sherrington & Stafford ( 2019 )
• More effective marking .
• Reduction in teacher workload .
• Fine tunes planning for future learning . -Thornton ( 2016 )
Cons
• Less personal .
• If students submit work late , you may have to delay providing the class with the feedback sheet , or risk providing feedback prior to all students completing a piece of work . -Race ( n . d .)
• Sometimes miss writing comments on individual student ’ s work ! -Thornton ( 2016 )
Trialling whole class feedback
For the initial trial I used a Doodle ‘ Class Mark ’ template ( Doodle , 2019 ) with two year 8 classes during Michaelmas term 2019 . Overall , WCF was a much quicker method to mark a whole class set of assessments . However , this template is not suitable for Sevenoaks ; it is too informal , some ‘ boxes ’ could be omitted , whilst others could be made larger to enable space for better quality feedback tasks for students to complete . A focus group was held with one of the year 8 classes to gather their views ; overall this was positive as students do not mind receiving feedback using WCF ; occasionally students were unaware of what specific feedback applied to them ; and students would prefer a space for the class average mark , and space to write their mark so they know how they compare and ‘ how much they need to do to improve ’.
Development of the Sevenoaks class feedback template
An audit of current use of WCF at Sevenoaks was conducted . Various types of feedback that could be classified as WCF are used by a variety of teachers across a range of departments . None use a template ; it is usually written out on an ad-hoc basis . All teachers still write individual comments on student ’ s work and use WCF in addition , thus believing WCF hinders workload . This reflects how reluctant teachers are to stop writing comments on student work ( as they perceive this to be more accountable to observers ( Facer , 2016a & 2016b ); encouraging a switch to WCF is a huge cultural shift for teacher and student alike . The audit was interesting to see what others do , though has not informed the creation of the template much as no other teacher uses one . It has , however , reinforced that WCF at Sevenoaks will be a big change .
5