Feedback Methods
One of the best places to begin with feedback is asking your students what they'd prefer. Offer them a range of methods and they must state which they'd prefer to receive. You'll probably find that it's not quantity that matters, but quality. Many of them will also say that they'd prefer not to have grades on any formative assessment; if the grades are too good, they'll become complacent and if they're not very good then they'll lose confidence. Feedback should be as much about students' confidence as it should be about their subject knowledge or skills.
Marking should take both written and verbal forms. It should be based around questions rather than statements. This encourages students to independently improve their work, rather than be told what to do.
Marking can be time consuming, so set yourself some rules:
- Return sub-standard work without marking it.
- Targeted marking- look at one aspect of their work each time.
- Close the gap- see the adjacent page.
- Feedback becomes little and often so that it's regular.
Have you tried using video or voice recorded feedback to support students? Take a look at this post, which explores how this helping students to develop their work.
For those of you not yet on Twitter, and even for those who are, #ukedchat takes place every week on a Thursday and a recent discussion included how to make your marking count.
This is an archive of that discussion and this page details the main links shared by Tweachers. If you're looking to join Twitter, look out for upcoming Pass It On sessions.
Before marking
At times, it's important to plan ahead before marking. Click on the image to the left to read about how @TeacherToolkit 's 5 min plan can help you to clarify what your feedback will look like.