Feedback loop that works

With the academic year-end in sight, teachers will have their hands full grading assignments, exams and projects. While grades and marks indicate how a student has fared overall in a subject, they are poor student learning, interest or potential descriptors.

In How Learning Works, Susan Ambrose and co-authors define feedback as “information given to students about their performance that guides future behaviour.” So, how can teachers provide feedback that motivates students to enhance their skills and knowledge?  In this article, three talented educators weigh in.

Azeema Chimthanawala, English Instruction Specialist at The Akanksha Foundation, Mumbai, her conception of constructive feedback evolved. In her earlier job as an English Teacher for high-school students, Chimthanawala first gave students only grades, ticks or crosses. However, she found that her students often approached her as they were flummoxed about how they could score higher marks. To allay their confusion, she started writing feedback and giving specific tips to students. 

Over time, she shared the rubric she used to grade essays with her students. To her delight, this prompted them to self-correct their essays. Earlier, when students were asked to check their work, they would simply reread their essays. But now they had a framework with clear parameters spelt out. So, their ability to critique their writing is enhanced by leaps and bounds.

Moreover, students also applied what they learnt about writing to other subjects. When they had to provide long answers in Social Science, for example, students were attentive to their main ideas, sentence structures, vocabulary, organisation, spelling, grammar and punctuation.

Sheila Khemka, a Special Educator who works one-on-one with children in Bengaluru, echoes the importance of specificity in feedback. According to Khemka, generic praise like “good job” or “well done” doesn’t provide much clarity to children.

Instead, pinpointing what is right and what needs correction automatically provides children with clear goalposts on what to focus on next. Khemka finds that children make considerable gains in reading, spelling, comprehension and handwriting when she tailors her comments to highlight the next steps they need to achieve. 

She also avers that feedback should be timed and modulated correctly. Rather than wait for the end of a unit or semester, feedback may be given throughout the year, ensuring it’s not too much or too frequent. Working with children with learning difficulties helps to pinpoint the key areas the child needs to zero in on. Further, teachers’ comments have to be coupled with opportunities for students to practice requisite skills or concepts for feedback to be truly meaningful. For students to register and process feedback properly, Khemka recommends written over oral comments. 

Demoralising children

A teacher at Bidiru Learning Centre, Bengaluru, Nat Francis handles an array of subjects from English to Music to Fiber Art. Regarding feedback, Francis emphasizes “process over product and effort over outcome” and is mindful of not demoralising children. When Francis plays the guitar or keyboard while accompanying children singing, the teacher’s slip-ups are pinpointed, so children see that mistakes are an endemic aspect of learning. 

Just as Khemka targets her feedback to where a child is, Francis customizes feedback based on the child’s skill levels and the complexity of the piece they have chosen. As Francis believes that students must be invested in and take ownership of their learning, children can select the songs they wish to learn.

Once, when a child picked a challenging song, Francis did not dissuade her from trying. Rather than correct her pitch, tone and lyrics, Francis focused solely on whether the child could render the song without hesitation and then lauded her by saying, “That was an amazing attempt. Now, can you tell me which parts of the song are the hardest and easiest?” By asking targeted questions, Francis gets students to reflect on their own choices and craft, intending that they would eventually internalize the practice of questioning themselves.

Chimthnalwala adds that she, too, was open to feedback from her students. After every class, she would ask what went well or poorly. By being open to receiving feedback from them in front of the whole class, Chimthanawala showed her students how everyone can gain from incorporating constructive criticism when it’s taken in the right spirit.

If students responded rudely to her call for feedback, Chimthnawala used that as an opportunity to coach them on giving negative feedback politely and respectfully, imparting another critical life lesson.

Khemka also notes that most teacher training programs don’t necessarily provide explicit training on how teachers may provide feedback. Given how impactful a teacher’s words can be, she avers that teachers may benefit from receiving feedback on their feedback. As teachers’ ability to provide feedback is honed by experience, Francis notes that students and teachers repose greater faith in themselves.

(The author is a psychologist & writer)