"How to Give Effective Feedback to your Students" Susan M. Brookhart

2008, 113pgs, published by ASCD USA.

Feedback is a powerful tool that a teacher can wield, and used correctly, can make the different between quality learning, and ineffective learning. And so, in this book by Susan M. Brookhart (who has an extensive career in this specific field of education), feedback itself is dissected so that each teacher who reads it can add it - as effective feedback - to their toolbox.

Brookhart begins by outlining at first what effective feedback is. There is a clear difference between good and bad feedback, and it can make the difference in particular in the learner and their motivations. There are a number of things at play within a student's mind when attempting to learn - the least of which is the actual task. Prior learning, self-confidence, self-efficacy, and more, cogitate together to form a response, making it difficult to follow any kind of script. Therefore, teachers need to get better at giving good feedback, and there are hallmarks of this.

Ensuring the correct timing, amount (of feedback), mode and audience are important. Then you have feedback content to ensure: focus (should primarily be the task or process), comparison (again, should either be criteria or self-referenced), function, and valence (always positive, always positive).

Brookhart goes on to assist with both written and oral feedback. There is a time and place for both, depending on the age of student, in particular, and the task that you are talking about. There are some great ideas from vignettes that I believe I will use very soon. For example, there is a test review sheet, that draws attention to why a student got a question wrong (rather than telling them why yourself). This process brings out students own self-efficacy in themselves as learners, and challenges them to improve themselves. That is the real meaning of scaffolding, I believe.

There are also content-specific suggestions for feedback, which really outline that good feedback can span all areas. It really doesn't change much, as long as it is phrased correctly. Finally, Brookhart looks at how best to differentiate feedback for different types of learners. She underscores the fact that all learners deserve feedback, as all learners can benefit from it.