Feedback and Improvement in Student Learning

1. Feedback and Improvement in Student Learning Helen Timperley Professor of Education The University of Auckland New Zealand

2. Auckland • Wellington • Christchurch

5. Overview of Presentation • Feedback and its power • Challenges for teachers • An inquiry and knowledge building cycle for improvement

6. Feedback • Information provided by someone or something to a learner about aspects of performance or understanding • Feedback follows teaching • May be seen as new teaching when it fills gap between what is understood and what is aimed to be understood

7. Influences on Achievement ? (Hattie, 2009) 0 Decreased Zero Enhanced

8. The typical influence on achievement (Hattie, 2009) The typical effect across • 800+ meta-analysis • 50,000 studies, and • 200+ million students

9. Effect on Achievement over time? Typical Effect Size 0 .20 1.0 .40 Decreased Zero Enhanced

10. Where feedback fits (Hattie, 2009) 1 Acceleration (speed up a year) .88 2 Feedback .73 3 Student-teacher relationships .72 • Teaching study skills .59 • Cooperative learning .41 • Homework .29 • Mentoring .15 • Ability grouping .12 9 Retention (hold back a year) -.16

11. The Power of Feedback • Comes from being embedded in strategies involving: • Student self-report grades (Rank 1) • Formative evaluation (Rank 3) • Teacher clarity (Rank 8) • But not all feedback promotes student learning

12. What feedback would you give to this student? (Parr & Timperley, 2010) • Learning objective: To learn how to structure a recount (an account of some event that has occurred) • Intended audience and purpose: Tell your friends in an interesting way about a trip you have been on • This student wrote about a trip to Sydney and Brisbane (Australia) • Write down two pieces of feedback you would give to this student

13. Hi I am at home planning my next trip to synedy and Brisbaned for Christmas and New years day I am going to stay in syned for a week and I am going to stay in Brisburnd for a week with my mum’s flat mate. When I went over to synedy las time I met rua hes a dog of chris’s. Chris is one of marys flat mate now last time when I went there I had to count his money. Then there is nan she has 3 children one is around 14 years old the seoncod is 2 years old and the youngst child is nine mothes old. Then I went to Brisbured. When I got to Synedy I am going to go to all this fantsey parks and and I am going to stay in a hotal.

14. Feedback can be detrimental • When it does not give information about how to improve, for example: • Tentative grades with no comments • Feedback associated with extrinsic rewards • Personal praise / criticism that distracts from the task My day is boring and I don’t know what this assignment is about. D- You are so clever

15. Purpose – to reduce discrepancy between current understandings and a desired goal Ways to reduce the discrepancy Increase effort or abandon goal Answers three questions Where am I going? How am I going? Where to next? Self- Regulation Task Task Process Self

16. Purpose To reduce discrepancies between current understandings / performance and a desired goal • Key conditions: • Students must have a learning goal • Answers the question, “Where am I going? • Most effective when goals are specific and challenging but not too difficult

17. Ways to reduce the discrepancy • Increase effort using more effective strategies • Abandon, blur or lower the goal • Key conditions: • Teachers work with students to identify appropriate challenging and specific goals • Teachers assist students to reach them through effective learning strategies • “Where to next?”

18. Students Students Answers three questions Where am I going? Goal How am I going? Feedback Where to next? Feed-forward

19. Each feedback question works at four levels How well the tasks are understood / performed Task level The main processes needed to understand / perform tasks Process level Self Regulation Self-monitoring, directing and regulation of actions Personal evaluations and affect (usually positive) about the learner Self level

20. Hi I am at home planning my next trip to synedy and Brisbaned for Christmas and New years day I am going to stay in syned for a week and I am going to stay in Brisburnd for a week with my mum’s flat mate. When I went over to synedy las time I met rua hes a dog of chris’s. Chris is one of marys flat mate now last time when I went there I had to count his money. Then there is nan she has 3 children one is around 14 years old the seoncod is 2 years old and the youngs child is nine mothes old. Then I went to Brisbured. When I got to Synedy I am going to go to all this fantsey parks and and I am going to stay in a hotal.

21. How Would Your Feedback Have Scored? For a high score (on our rubric): • Feedback provides an indication of: • Extent to which the writer met the learning objective (structuring recounts) • Extent to which writing had features associated with audience and purpose for writing (friends about an interesting trip) • What action the writer could take to improve 

22. The Research Results • 49 teachers • Relationship between the quality of feedback score and gains in student achievement on a nationally normed measure of writing (asTTle) highly significant (r=.685, p<.01)

23. A second study (Timperley & Parr, 2009) In a professional development project we examined extent to which teachers were explicit about and students understood • Learning objectives • Success criteria • Feedback • Feed forward • 15 teachers, observed lessons (with microphones), students interviewed

24. Teachers’ Learning Sequence • Clarity of learning objectives and success criteria developed first for teachers (and understood by students) • Found personal praise difficult to stop; • Feedback about task & process rare; • Feed forward almost non-non-existent

25. Learning How to Give Feedback in Ways that Promote Student Learning • Requires that teachers’ professional learning is carefully scaffolded over time (in the same way as student learning) • Teachers identify learning goals with students • Identify own professional learning goals about feedback practice for themselves (in relation to students’ learning goals) • Seek feedback from students and leaders on their progress • Readjust their feedback practice • And so on ...

26. Timperley, H. (2008) Teacher Professional Learning and Development. International Academy of Education. International Bureau of Education. Paris: UNESCO

27. Teacher inquiry and knowledge-building cycle to promote student outcomes for teachers What knowledge and skills do our students need? What knowledge and skills do we as teachers need? What has been the impact of our changed actions? Deepen professional knowledge and refine skills Engage students in new learning experiences

28. Deepen student and professional learning focus Re-assess students’ knowledge and skills Professionals refine feedback practices Observe how students respond (Prof feedback) Professionals assisted to Identify feedback practices and new skills required Assess students’ knowledge and skills Relationship between professional and student learning

29. Students Principals Teachers Feedback and Improvement

30. For Rest of the Day: Think about How Teachers Can Inquire and Build Knowledge • High stakes testing and student learning • National Monitoring system • Criteria development with teachers • Macro or micro assessment policy • Assessment in Curriculum of Excellence • Developing an ‘assessment for learning’ culture