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To Craft Teacher Feedback That Leads To Learning, Put Yourself in The Student's Shoes
To Craft Teacher Feedback That Leads To Learning, Put Yourself in The Student's Shoes
The use of discourse is a means by which tutors wittingly or unwittingly exert power
over students. The ideology of universities demarcates novice students from
authoritative academics, and this is often reinforced by the role of correcting and
judging scripts, rather than engaging in a debate on them (Ivani et al., 2000; Lea &
Street, 1998). There is a danger that the language of assessment feedback can be too
final, or as Boud (1995) puts it, We judge too much and too powerfully, not realising the
extentto which students experience our power over them (p. 43). An aspect of power is
potential bias; for example, Fleming (1999) indicates that tutors tend to mark up
students who they perceive as approaching a task in a similar way to themselves, or
students with a previous track record of good grades. Scott (1995) argues that teachers
also sometimes use grades to reward or punish students.
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To craft teacher feedback that leads to learning, put yourself in the student's shoes.
From the student's point of view, the ideal "script" for formative
assessment reads something like, "Here is how close you are to the
knowledge or skills you are trying to develop, and here's what you need to
do next." The feedback teachers give students is at the heart of that
script. But feedback is only effective when it translates into a clear,
positive message that students can hear.
Another strategy to encourage student reflection on feedback comments is to
give a provisional grade, but invite students to talk about their work and
potentially earn a higher grade. Some commentators suggest withholding the
grade altogether until students have read the comments and indicated this in
some way (Taras, 2003).
both teachers and students to start using the phrase feed-forward as this encourages
both teachers and students to focus on future learning.