More on the Importance of Feedback

The conversations I have had with colleagues regarding the importance of peer feedback for students continue. Here are some of my colleagues' important and poignant thoughts:

The value or significance of teacher and peer feedback is an important tool in learning.  I think both serve students well when they are timely and delivered appropriately.  I have seen how some students react better to peer feedback more positively thus creating the motivation and student improvement teachers are looking for in the classroom, while for other students, teacher feedback is a necessary component of student learning as it is these students who routinely use this feedback to motivate themselves to greater academic success.

 

Key to deciding which method to use and when, I believe, is knowing your students and the relationship that you have with each. By doing so, one can maximize the effects of teacher and peer feedback while increasing student performance, motivation and success.

 

Ridgeview staff can purposefully make strategic teacher and critical peer feedback a daily practice in instruction by building upon their strengths…the things that they are already doing. Administrators, school leaders and teachers all can be and should be a part of this. It was apparent after reading some of the previous posts, that many, if not all of the teachers were incorporating various aspects of these ideas.  Build upon your skills…try something new…revise as necessary…model the skill/process. WE CAN DO THIS…WE ARE DOING THIS.

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I really enjoyed both articles but the article “Why Every Students Needs Critical Friends” really drove some points home. I’ve always tried peer critique of essays in my class but it doesn’t always work out the way I’d like. But after reading this, I feel I need to make a better effort towards showing my students—i.e. modeling—how to provide specific feedback. By making students’ comments more specific  and detailed as to what was good and what needs to be improved upon in a critique of a project or BCR, it can help them be more aware and conscious of their own work.  In addition, it makes each student accountable when sharing projects or the like.

 

We need to help our students take the lead now because as the article mentions, “peer critique helps students prepare one another for life” and it truly is a great opportunity to show them how to give constructive feedback they can use from their peers.