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Using feedforward in the music classroom

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DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.25592.14080

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Using Digital Feedforward in the
music classroom
Mrs Belinda Dolan, Music Teacher, Living Faith Lutheran Primary School, Murrumba Downs, Queensland
Introduction
The topic of feedback has been hotly con-
tested among researchers for more than
a century. Since the early 1900s feedback
has been a fascination of researchers
around the world. People such as Brand
(1905), Judd (1905) and Jones (1910) were
looking at how feedback intervention in-
creases performance (Kluger, De Nisi,
1996, p. 255). Nearly 100 years on, Kluger
and De Nisi were expanding on these no-
tions of increases in performance to look
at why, how and the effects of feedback on
people’s work output.
“Feedback in an educational context is
generally regarded as crucial to improving
knowledge and skill” (Shute, 2007, p. 1).
With this in mind, we see a new ‘buzz’
term on formative assessment emerge,
AEL 39 (3)
allowing students to improve or ‘move
forward’ in their quest to improve their
knowledge. The new term, ‘feedforward’,
can be applied to any profession, not just
education. The term ‘feedforward’ refers
to any advice or criticism given in the
formative assessment tasks of students
(Shute, 2007, p. 1).
The purpose of this paper is to share
my students’ journey and the results gath-
ered by using digital feedforward over
their videoed responses of assessment
tasks. This project collected data over an
eight-month period to ascertain wheth-
er recording advice or ‘feedforward’ over
the performances (and emailing it back
to them to practise and record again) im-
proved their overall marks. Though this
is used in a music classroom, this simple
ict
concept can be applied to any educational
subject or context.
Feedforward vs Feedback – what
are the experts saying?
There are hundreds of case studies and
research papers on feedback and as many
papers as there are on the subject, there
is an array of differing definitions as to
what it constitutes. For the purposes of
this paper feedback is defined as “provid-
ing information to learners about where
they are in relation to their learning goals.
This enables them to evaluate their prog-
ress, identify gaps or misconceptions in
their knowledge and take remedial ac-
tion” (Ferrell, Gray, 2013, p. 2). Feed-
back is often associated with summative
assessment and is given at the end of a
87
ict
Figure 1
piece of work or task. So, if feedback is centered on final stu-
dent outcomes and current performance, then it can be said
that feedforward is centered on future learnings (formative as-
sessment) (Ferrell and Gray, 2013, p. 2). Conaghan and Lockey
define feedforward as the “proactive direction which enables the
candidate to move forward. It is the natural extension of good
feedback” (2009, p. 48). It is thought that feedforward occurs
continuously throughout a student’s learning, and that it moves
our students forward with their learning. It offers constructive
guidance on how to improve the next element of work. The sole
intention of feedforward is as it suggests, to “move the recipient
forward”, not backwardly reflect.
Method
Participants
The experiment involved 30 children aged from 10–12 years old,
and was drawn evenly from a selection of grade 5 and 6 class-
es at Living Faith Lutheran Primary School, Brisbane. Here the
children participate in a 45-minute music lesson (based on the
Kodály philosophy of music education) and a 30-minute choir
lesson per week. The children had their own iPads which they
used in all facets of their education (including both class and
specialist lessons). They also used Google Classroom in the mu-
sic classroom, where the music teacher would post notifications,
assessment tasks and songs or videos of tasks that they were do-
ing in class. The students were able to ask questions about things
learnt in class and clarify performances and information with a
very short turn around. The students did not do any assessment
tasks “live” for the teacher, but videoed themselves using their
iPads (both in and out of school time) and uploaded it to Goo-
gle Classroom for submission and marking. All feedforward was
also sent back to the students via email (which negated the face-
to-face contact with the teacher).
The distribution of students for this case study were: girls n
= 15, boys n = 15. Of this, there were 15 students (both boys
and girls) who took music lessons on an instrument within the
school instrumental program or externally, and 15 students
with no other musical experience. Within the group there were
four sets of twins (n = 2 female, n = 1 male, n = 1 male/female).
Within the twin cohort there were n = 2 fraternal musical, n =
1 identical non-musical and n = 1 identical musical pairs. There
was also a brother and sister, non-musical, non-twins. The other
students (n = 15), both boys and girls, were a random selection
of children who were musical and non-musical.
88
Figure 2
Design
The study was designed to explore whether ‘real-time’ digital/
audio feedforward given over a video of the students’ singing
task improves student achievement outcomes. The study con-
sisted of two parts – Part A (2 months) and Part B (an extension
of part A with additional tasks – 6 months), which were com-
pleted by all students in the class, not just those in the study.
Both tasks had a built-in control of non-feedforward activities,
and focused on the relationship between marks and feedfor-
ward, and whether feedforward given over a video recording
of the students’ work helped improve the new marks awarded.
In Part A, the students elected to feedforward (non-compulso-
ry), whilst in Part B they were required to feedforward a min-
imum of 1 task (compulsory). The tasks were marked against
a 15-point scale whereby 15 is the highest and 1 is the lowest.
After the tasks were marked and handed back to the students,
they completed an anonymous on-line survey about their expe-
riences with feedforward.
Procedure
Part A
In the first term of their school year the students were given
two tasks that formed their summative assessment mark for
semester one. The tasks that comprised the assessment were:
sing the pentatonic scale with intervals and secondly sing the
pentatonic tri-chords with hand signs and intervals as seen in
Figures 1 and 2. The task timeframe gave the students suffi-
cient time to practise the scales until they felt that they were
at a standard that they were able to submit them. Using their
iPads, the students then recorded themselves and uploaded the
video to Google Classroom. By videoing themselves they were
able to have as many “attempts” at the tasks as they liked, as
they only submitted the best video to the task box on Google
Classroom. At this stage of the study, the students were given
the option to ‘opt in’ to the feedforward task to complement
the assessment tasks that they were completing. Using an ed-
iting tool, the teacher downloaded the video and annotated an
audio commentary over the top of the performance pointing
out good pitching, poor pitching, good rhythm, poor rhythm,
good hand signs and poor hand signs at the exact time that they
occurred, as well as a summary of the improvements needed.
This annotation was then emailed back to the students where
they were able to watch the video back and see in ‘real time’
where they made mistakes or where their strengths lay – see
an example of this at: https://youtu.be/TWZzfDoN8qY. Only
15 students (50%) chose to feedforward a task at this stage of
the study. Due to the results of this case study another study for
semester 2 was devised.
AEL 39 (3)

Figure 3
Part B
With the success of ‘Part A’ in achieving its desired outcomes, it
was suggested that the same feedforward idea be used again, but
made compulsory for all students in the semester. In Semester 2
the students chose eight tasks from 32 differentiated tasks based
around the pentatonic scale, the pentatonic tri-chords and a can-
on (based on the pentatonic scale) that they had been studying in
class. The students had free choice of their tasks and were able to
feedforward any (or all) of these tasks. The same conditions were
applied, with videos being uploaded to task boxes in Google Class-
room. Part B also had more time allocated to it, which allowed the
students to perfect their performances prior to submission. Once
the tasks were completed, uploaded, annotated, emailed back and
re-uploaded, students completed an anonymous on-line survey (n
= 21 = 70% completed) about their experiences in the study.
AEL 39 (3)
ict
Figure 4
Results
Teacher rating – Part A
The first set of analyses looked at the outcome of results: feed-
forward vs non-feedforward. This assessment was marked on a
15-point scale and the results of this are seen in Figure 3. Of the
15 students who chose to feedforward 93.3% of them increased
their mark by more than 1 point, while 6.7% stayed the same.
Teacher rating – Part B
The aim of the project from the outset was to see if feedforward
improved student outcomes. In Part A from non-compulsory
feedforward, the answer was yes, of those students who chose to
feedforward 93% of their marks did improve. In Part A, the group
of students who did feedforward were self-motivated learners
and were driven by improvement in not only their music classes,
but all of their academic studies. For the students’ second piece of
assessment they were all required to feedforward. Students who
were reluctant music students, driven music students, musical
and non-musical all participated in the feedforward process.
Results of Part B
From the outset, the question asked of the students and their
work was: Does feedforward improve student outcomes for all
students? It can be seen from this data (Figure 4) that 86.7% of
students (n = 26) did improve their marks, while 3.3% (n = 1) did
not improve and 10% (n = 3) stayed the same. Of the girls who
participated in the project (n = 15), 86.6% improved their marks,
6.6% did not improve and 6.6% of them stayed the same, as com-
pared to the boys, (n = 15) who also had 86.6% of them improve;
0% of them did not improve and 13.3% stayed the same.
It was interesting to then look closer at the data to compare
musical and non-musical students – see Figure 5. Of the musical
students (n = 15) 6.7% of the students went from the bottom to
the middle of the band, 20% went from the bottom to the top of
the band, 40% went from the middle to the top of the band, 20%
89
ict

Figure 5 Figure 6

went from one level of achievement to another and 13.3% of the

students showed no improvement. The non-musical students ac-
tually had similar results in the data but with the greatest rate of
change being from the middle to the top of the band.
As this study involved twins (both fraternal and identical)
and a brother and sister (non-twin), it was interesting to see the
comparison of their results. Of all the twins (n = 8) 87.5% of
them improved their marks while 12.5% either stayed the same
or did not improve. Within this improvement 25% of the identi-
cal twins improved from the bottom to the middle of the band,
25% moved from the middle to the top of the band, 25% moved
from one level of achievement to another and 25% showed no
improvement. With the fraternal twins 25% moved from the bot-
tom to the top of the band, 50% moved from the middle to the
top of the band and 25% moved from one level of achievement to
another. These data can be seen in Figure 6.
Between the brothers and sisters (n = 4), the boys had 50%
movement from the bottom of the band to the middle of the
band and 50% moved from one level of achievement to another,
as opposed to the girls who had 100% of their group move from
the bottom to the top of the band.
At the end of the assessment task project the students were
asked to fill in an online survey that gave a picture of their ex-
perience with the project. From the 30 students, 21 returned the
survey. See Figure 7 for the results.

Discussion
The results highlight that, for Part A of the project there was
enough evidence to extend the project further to make the feed-
forward task compulsory. Of this Part B (compulsory feedfor-
ward), 86% of the students improved. The exciting part of this
data was that 15.4% of students were able to go from a fail grade
to a pass grade. As suggested in the literature of Shute (2007),
Hattie and Timperley (2007) and Chappuis (2012), the feedfor-
ward needed to be personalised, given in a timely manner and
the way it was given needed to be able to be used by the student.
All of these points added to the success of the students as was
confirmed in the student survey. The students felt (90%) that the
audio/visual feedback really did inform their learning and 71%
felt that this had such a positive influence on their learning that
they would use it again. When looking closer at the breakdown
of improvement and non-improvement, it was interesting to note
that both the boys and girls improved at the same rate. When
looking at the twins’ results, 87.5% of the twins improved as op-
posed to 86.4% non-twins, therefore showing that their rate of
improvement was marginally better. It was interesting however
90
Figure 7
to see that there was very little difference between musical and
non-musical students with the greatest rate of improvement be-
ing that from the middle to the top of the band. As this project
was based around the Kodály methodology of the pentatonic
scale and tri-chords, it may be that the ability of being able to
play an instrument or not has little to no bearing on whether the
students are successful at singing.
The overall appeal of this task to the students was very high
with 71% saying they would do this form of assessment again.
The use of technology in this classroom has had an important
impact on the learning of the students which can be seen from
the student survey. 86% of the students found this beneficial,
while only 9.5% and 4.5% either didn’t find it helpful or didn’t
know if it helped or not. These figures are supported by Brown,
Harris and Harnett (2012) as they believe that “feedforward is
one of the most critical influences on student learning and this
leads to increased learner satisfaction” (2012, p. 968). Because
AEL 39 (3)

the performances that the students hand in is not “in front of a
live audience”, they have been able to “do their best”, with one
student reporting that she and her sister had recorded their
song “73 times” till they got it right. It is encouraging that the
girl did it this many times till she was satisfied that it was going
to be of a standard both worthy for her and the teacher. This is
the aim of feedforward in that it “contributes to students adopt-
ing more productive learning strategies” in order to create the
best work that they are capable of doing (Brown, Harris, and
Harnett, 2012, p. 968).
Conclusion
“There is a growing trend to offer students learning opportunities
that are flexible, innovative and engaging. As educators embrace
student-centered agile teaching and learning methodologies, which
required continuous reflection and adapting, the need to match the
needs, knowledge and preferences of the student cohort” is what
is shaping education in the 21st century (Cathcart, Greer and
Neal, 2014, p. 790). This project has definitely used a number
of student-centered approaches in order to create a learning en-
vironment where the needs of the students are met on an indi-
vidual basis. With the use of the iPad, a digital repository and
feedforward tasks, the students in this study were able to have
many attempts to increase their learning and gain a better insight
into their work. The ability to have feedforward in a ‘real-time’
digital medium has given students the advantage of revisiting
their work in order to improve on it. This project has drawn on
technology, differentiated student learning and assessment tasks,
and ‘real-time’ audio feedforward which has allowed students
to review their work and give them the opportunity to improve
their marks. “Feedforward is one of the most powerful influences
on learning achievement” (Hattie and Timperley 2007, p. 81), and
this has been seen extensively throughout this project. The hy-
pothesised idea that feedforward will improve student learning
and outcomes is supported by the data. From a non-compulsory
study in Part A to a compulsory study in Part B it has been seen
that the use of feedforward in assessment tasks in an elementary
music classroom has positively shaped the learners of this project
for the future.
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References
Brown, GTL, Harris, LR, Harnett, J 2012, ‘Teacher beliefs about feed-
back within an assessment for learning environment: Endorsement of
improved learning over student well-being’, Teaching and Teacher Edu-
cation, vol. 28, pp. 968–978.
Cathcart, A, Greer, D, Neal, L 2014, ‘Learner-focused evaluation cycles:
facilitating learning using feedforward, concurrent and feedback evalu-
ation’, Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, vol. 39, no. 7, pp.
790–802.
Chappuis, J 2012, ‘How Am I Doing?’, Educational Leadership, Feedback
for Learning, vol. 70, no. 1, pp. 36–41.
Conaghan, P, Lockey, A 2009, ‘Feedback to feedforward – A positive
approach to improving candidate success’, Notfall Rettungsmed, Supple-
ment 2/12, pp. 45–48.
Ferrell, G, Gray, L 2013, ‘Feedback and feedforward – Using technology
to support students’ progression over time’, Jisc, pp. 1–10, available at
https://www.jisc.ac.uk/guides/feedback-and-feed-forward.
Hattie, J, Timperley, H 2007, ‘The Power of Feedback’, Review of Educa-
tional Research, vol. 77, no. 1, pp. 81–112.
Kluger, N, De Nisi, A 1996, ‘The Effects of Feedback Interventions of
Performance: A Historical Review, a Meta-Analysis, and a Preliminary
Feedback Intervention Theory’, Psychological Bulletin, vol. 119, no. 2, pp.
254–284.
Shute, VJ 2007, ‘Focus on Formative Feedback’, Educational Testing Ser-
vice, March, available at https://www.ets.org/Media/Research/pdf/RR-
07-11.pdf.
About the author
Belinda Dolan, BA, DipEd, Grad Cert, is a music teacher at Living Faith
Lutheran Primary School in Queensland. It is here that she developed
and expanded her love of technology. In 2012, the school went to a 1:1
iPad program this allowed her to develop an integrated study of music,
technology and project based learning into her Kodály Music curriculum
to give students a well-rounded music education. Belinda’s interests in
research and technology development include: student engagement,
STEAM education (music focus), teach meet style assessment, the creative
model approach to learning, Book Creator, on-line assessment, digital
feedforward, and app-smashing. In her spare time, Belinda is a sessional
tutor at the University of Sunshine Coast (Early years Arts), a Music Ed Net
mentor and presenter at Music Ed Net Daytime conferences.
Weekly Monthly wisdom Monthly updates Monthly tips and
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strategies for school leadership curriculum and in the early years
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