A few of Hattie’s comments on feedback that he made at a recent seminar struck a discord with me:
Feedback is much more about what students receive than teachers give.
When feedback is given to the whole class its received by no-one as they believe its not about them.
Students who read feedback don’t necessarily interpret it well – often picking up what they want to pick up not necessarily what you want them to
The majority of feedback is about how well the task was performed.
When you start feedback with praise it directs a student’s attention away from the task to a self view and they rarely connect anything from that point back to the information you provide them.
Praise can have a zero to negative effect as it often teaches students to be helpless [and kids don’t want to be helpless].
Student receive lots of feedback from their peers most of which is wrong [e.g. not linked to success criteria]
Hattie talked about 4 levels of feedback and provided the approximate percentages students receive:
- Task 59%
- Process 25%
- Self regulation 2%
- Self or praise orientated 14%
Hattie went on to indicate that 5% of feedback is related back to the learning intention of the lesson.
Maybe I heard what I wanted to hear when John said this last month but I find some of these comments quite a challenge. I am certainly reflecting hard on the comments as to action some of these requires me a substantial change in practice.
I tried to “catch” teachers providing feedback in one of the walk arounds last week to test Hattie’s work – particularly around the praise first comment as this sounds counter intuitive.
I don’t know about you but I think I often started feedback with:
I know your a good student but…
Your normally right on top of this however…
Well done ………. what about ……..
No comments yet on spotting and asking students what that feedback meant to them – its a work in progress.
