Rebecca Ballard Stiegel, EdD, serves as head administrator at Southside Christian School in Greenville, South Carolina.
Research verifies that for students of all ages teachers contribute a crucial element to achievement by giving immediate feedback. James Stronge (2002) has recently authored an outstanding book entitled Qualities of Effective Teachers. First-year teachers as well as career teachers will find this book useful as they aspire to improve their teaching strategies. Stronge places a great deal of emphasis on providing feedback to learners. He writes that “feedback is one of the most powerful modification techniques for increasing learning outcomes in students” (p. 56). Stronge supports other educational researchers with his findings: As the delay in giving feedback increases, the probability that students will respond to the feedback and that learning will be enhanced both decrease.
Research also shows that the feedback students gain from self-critiques, from peer-critiques, and from the teacher can accelerate the learning process. As students develop higher-level thinking skills, they gain valuable insight from teacher-made rubrics when assessing their own performance or critiquing a fellow student's writing, problem-solving skills, or decision-making skills. The key, of course, is for the teacher to develop sound rubrics that assess and measure the objectives of instruction (Stronge 2002, 56).
While understanding what research shows is critical to understanding how students learn, this article also contains the pragmatic comments from teachers serving on the front line as they discuss their experiences with feedback and their students at Southside Christian School. Perhaps these comments can trigger for teachers a self-examination of what can take place differently in classrooms to increase student achievement:
- “Monitoring the class during quizzes and seat work allows us to give the children the feedback they need. The purpose of quizzes and seat work is not to give the teacher a break but to provide the children with an opportunity to learn with teacher interaction.” (Stacy Dean, elementary teacher)
- “If a student’s work does not meet appropriate standards, it is important for the student to know immediately so that the student can make correction immediately. The longer that a student is allowed to continue down an incorrect path, the more difficult correction will become. Immediate feedback provides encouragement to the student and reinforces what the student has done. As time goes by, the impact of feedback diminishes in value.” (Paul Tedder, AP computer science and high school Bible teacher)
- “For the age I teach, feedback needs to be given to students on the same day that the work is completed, for the next day is a light-year away for my students.” (Linda Adams, first-grade teacher)
- “Immediate feedback aids the teacher in his or her knowledge of how students understand their work and whether the teacher needs to reteach using different modalities. Statements such as you need to try harder or do ten more problems until you get the right answer are not appropriate feedback to a student who does not understand his or her error.” (Lynda Moldrem, middle school principal)
- “Feedback, negative (constructive) or positive, lets the student know ‘I know you are trying, and I care about your success in my class.’” (Patricia Gilbert, computer and graphing design teacher)
Administrators must protect quality time for teachers to grade assignments and plan effectively. For as educators we face a worthwhile challenge. We must grade assignments in a timely manner, give constant feedback to students in class while monitoring instruction, plan for feedback time as part of the lesson, and develop rubrics for students to self-critique and peer-critique.
Reference
Stronge, James H. 2002. Qualities of effective teachers. Alexandria, Va.: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
The Value of Timely Feedback 6.3