Standard 5: Assess, provide feedback and report on student learning
5.5: Provide feedback to students on their learning
In order to deliver high quality teaching, educators need to ensure that assessment of content and feedback is both timely and meaningful to the students. Although many educators place a great deal of importance on summative assessment results and feedback, many wrongly neglect the ongoing and constant feedback which students should receive throughout learning (McInerney, 2014). Hattie (2007) argues that providing rapid and targeted feedback to students through the learning process is of the utmost importance because doing so allows students to correct their mistakes and improve rather than continue erroneous habits throughout the entire learning sequence. Such feedback –which is characterised by its ongoing and often informal delivery- is known as formative feedback and is beneficial to both teacher in regards to the effectiveness of their teaching method and the students in regards to their learning approach (Conner, 1985; Hattie, 1992).
The Australian Curriculum and The School Curriculum and Standards Authority expect teachers to provide timely feedback to students as part of the reporting and assessing process in addition to keeping records of ongoing data to use as evidence during reporting periods (ACARA, 2016). Within the Year 4 Australian Curriculum: Mathematics, students are required to investigate common fractions and decimals, and represent these numbers on a number line. The relevant curriculum codes for these Year 4 Fractions and Decimals outcomes include (ACMNA077), (ACMNA078) and (ACMNA079).
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Photographs of the pizza-creating journey. Photo credits: Author.
During my recent practicum in Year 4 I was required to teach a low-ability group of eight students in mathematics. The students in this class were under-performing in mathematics and were generally disengaged and unmotivated to improve their skills and competence in the subject in general. Thus, in order to give the students the best chance at succeeding in the fractions and decimals unit I was about to teach, I gathered information about the students’ learning and then framed all lessons from then onwards in the context of fraction pizzas to increase student motivation and learning effort.
From this point, the students and I worked through numerous fraction and parts-of-a-whole problems relating to a pizza which we made as a class. During the process of making the pizza, I ensured that I worked one-on-one with each student for short periods and questioned them during activities. Once the student had provided a response or an attempt at mathematical reasoning, I ensured to give instant verbal feedback which was not only meaningful (as the pizza and relevant maths problem was right in front of the student) but also constructive as the student was then immediately able to have another attempt at the problem and apply the feedback. For lower ability students, I found that the best results and largest improvements were made after I had provided verbal feedback with the student and giving verbal, individualised feedback meant that I could tailor my tone and wording to each students’ needs. I found that I still needed to be very positive and encouraging when giving feedback to students about how to improve their errors.
Evidence of feedback and assessment records. Credit: Author.
Although I delivered most of my feedback individually, verbally and instantly to students, I also kept a record of observations of each student’s progress throughout the unit for future reference and reporting. Such records assisted in developing an awareness of each students’ strengths and weaknesses as well as their approach to the problems at hand. The ongoing formative assessment and relevant records also assisted in guiding my focus for each child, each day.
At the end of the unit, I issued a summative test to the students which was based upon the content we explored throughout the unit (and was also pizza-themed to continue the unit theme). The results from the test were mixed, however each student’s result generally reflected their level of ability which I had carefully observed and supported throughout the unit, and this was also easy to see when the test results were compared with my ongoing records. Given that the class was also small in size, I managed to mark the test papers quickly and had them ready to discuss with the students the next day to ensure that the content was still fresh in the student’s minds. Based on this experience, I could see that the test was still meaningful to the students the next day and overall, all students benefitted from timely, targeted and meaningful verbal feedback on their mathematics skills throughout the unit.
References
Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority [ACARA]. (2016, August 15). Australian Curriculum: Mathematics. Retrieved from http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/mathematics/curriculum/f-10?layout=1#level4
Conner, K. (1985). Using formative testing at the classroom, school, and district levels. Educational Leadership, 43(14), 63-7.
Hattie, J. A. (1992). Measuring the effects of schooling. Australian Journal of Education, 36(12), 5-13.
Hattie, J. A. (2007). The Power of Feedback. Review of Educational Research, 77(25), 81-112.
McInerney, D. (2014). Educational psychology: Constructing learning (6th Edition). Frenchs Forrest, NSW: Pearson.