Feedback: The Hinge That Joins Teaching and Learning

The hinge-factor to improving student learning is right before our eyes in the classroom, and yet big budget reforms continue to look outside of the classroom. The hinge-factor is feedback. The new cognitive feedback definition improves upon the old behaviorism one, offering new techniques and new strategies for teachers to use in classrooms. All teachers employ what they perceive to be feedback strategies, but most need to revisit the what, why, and how about feedback and the latest buzzword formative assessment. Feedback is information communicated about an action, event, or process that relates back to the original source or goal. In the classroom, timely feedback can be any information that a learner receives as a consequence of performance that can be used to make improvements. Research and practice show that what is critical about feedback is: Not who gives it but who receives it. That it needs to be timely. Teachers need to learn basic techniques to efficiently turn curriculum statements into just-right learning targets so students can learn efficient progress monitoring with the help of the teacher. Students are adept at self-reporting and can learn strategies to track their own performances when instruction is deliberate. Learning to use a new definition of feedback, the hinge factor, teachers will find gains in classrooms without making other structural changes that are costly and political. Administrators can learn techniques to support teachers using the research during supervision. Jane E. Pollock, Learning Horizon, Inc., specializes in teaching and supervising learning. She provides long-term consulting services to schools worldwide that help them improve student learning and teaching practices. Dr. Pollock is the author of Improving Student Learning One Teacher at a Time (2007) and the coauthor of Dimensions of Learning Teacher and Training Manuals (1996), Assessment, Grading and Record Keeping (1999), Classroom Instruction That Works (2001), Improving Student Learning One Principal at a Time (2009) and Improving Student Learning by Minding the Gap (2011). She is an adjunct faculty member for various universities in the United States. A native of Caracas, Venezuela, Dr. Pollock has earned degrees at the University of Colorado and Duke University. Preface Acknowledgments Hinges in Action About the Author 1. The Hinge Factor: Feedback Managing Feedback Research on Feedback Feedback for Instruction, Not Only Assessment Small Changes, Positive Gains 2. Positive Deviants The Soup and the Ladle Small Changes, Dramatic Results The Flip Making the Small Changes 3. The Tell-Tale Students Tell-Tale Students Feedback and Goal Setting Feedback: Self Feedback: Effort Feedback From Peers and Feedback to the Teacher Feedback Throughout the Class Feedback in an Instant Feedback Works to Engage A Good Set of Goals Invisible in Plain Sight 4. Learn to Engage Was I That Teacher? Simple Technique: Turn-and-Talk Feedback: Peer Teaching Feedback: The Brain That Changes Itself Simple Technique: Take Notes Feedback: Self, Peer, Teacher Goals to Guide Notes Note-Taking Methods Evaluation Scale or Rubric Feedback Is a Two-Way Street Putting it Together Many Strategies Work 5. Feedback From the Teacher Feedback by Walking Around Feedback to Standards Doctors, Pilots, and English Teachers A Good Set of Goals Prepare to Give Feedback Better Feedback, Better Performance Feedback in the Twenty-First Century Feedback and the Unmotivated Student Changing Grading Habits Feedback in Large Classes What Motivates Us 6. Feedback Changed My Teaching Except The How, Not the What Twenty-First Century Feedback You Don’t Need Feedback Until You Need Feedback Feedback for Myself Everybody’s Talking at Me Tell-Tale Students, a Hinge Factor, and Positive Deviants References and Resources Index