LEARNING TO LEARN
The following two articles were originally published in ‘ Research at Berkhamsted ’, a joint venture by staff and students aiming to showcase the research and enquiry being undertaken by members of the Berkhamsted school community . We are pleased be able to republish these articles with their permission , and as part of our collaborative arrangement with Berkhamsted . Berkhamsted is a like-minded research-informed school , with whom we are working to exchange articles in order to disseminate our research to a broader audience and increase the impact of our publications .
Is written feedback a waste of time ?
Kath Tomlin
Many teachers have that same seed of frustration that grows perennially : pupils ignore or fail to act upon written feedback ; teachers write the same or similar comments repeatedly at the end of pupils ’ work and pupils make the same errors time and time again . Is written feedback a waste of time ? Norbert Winer ’ s metaphor ( Wiliam , D . 2011 ) is particularly useful when thinking about the nature of feedback . Consider a thermostat : it reads the current temperature and knows what the ideal temperature should be but its most important function is bringing the two together so that the room is the optimum temperature . Feedback should be like this – a clear guide that indicates how to bring the work in line with the expected grade , rather than stating what the grade is ( and by implication , what it should be ).
As an English teacher , technical accuracy is of high importance . I often look through the same pupil ’ s work and see that I have written comments such as “ check use of apostrophes ” more frequently than anything else . Either the comments are not being read or are being ignored . This would suggest that the comment – or rather method of feedback – is not helpful in getting the pupils to reach the required grade / temperature . I have become a proof-reader and feedback is not being used to make progress . As many pedagogical studies have shown ( Hattie 2007 , Muijs and Reynolds 2005 , Black and Wiliam 2014 ), feedback should be something that is acted upon and I wanted to explore ways to help pupils a ) identify their own errors and b ) be independent in thinking about how to develop and improve their work .
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