Using Feedback to Move Students’ Thinking Forward

1. Teachers of Teachers of Mathematics Conference September 7, 2012 Ashland, Oregon Nicole Miller Rigelman Portland State University rigelman@pdx.edu Using Feedback to Move Students’ Thinking Forward

2. Assessment can contribute to the development of effective schools.

3. Assessment of versus for Learning • Assessments oflearning provide evidence of achievement for public reporting. • Assessments for learning serve to help students learn more.

4. Five Key Strategies for Effective Formative Assessment • Clarifying, sharing, understanding goals for learning and criteria for success with learners. • Engineer effective classroom discussions, questions, activities, and tasks that elicit evidence of students’ learning. • Providing feedback that moves learning forward. • Activating students as owners of their own learning. • Activating students as instructional resources for one another. - Black and Wiliam, 1998

5. Five Key Strategies for Effective Formative Assessment • Clarifying, sharing, understanding goals for learning and criteria for success with learners. • Engineer effective classroom discussions, questions, activities, and tasks that elicit evidence of students’ learning. • Providing feedback that moves learning forward. • Activating students as owners of their own learning. • Activating students as instructional resources for one another. - Black and Wiliam, 1998

6. Strategies • Feedback • spoken • written • Formative marking • comment-only marking • 2 stars and a wish • Questioning • Student Discourse • Success criteria and rubrics • Peer assessment • Self assessment

8. Formative Feedback • Butler (1988*) researched the effectiveness of marking – out of the three options of giving • marksonly, • comments only, or • both a mark and a comment, students’ work improved in the case of those given comment-only marking. * quoted in Black, et. al., 2003, p. 43

9. Formative Feedback • One of the reasons why this type of marking is most effective, is that these comments provide “the training that students needed to judge their own learning and to begin to take action to improve.” • Black, et. al., 2003, p. 50

10. Joe’s Deck Joe dug his own pool with a shovel. He also planned a rectangular concrete deck around the pool that would be 6 feet wide at all points. The pool is rectangular and measures 14 feet by 40 feet. What is the area of the deck? Explain your thinking at each step and your answer(s).

11. Formative Feedback • Read the written student work. • Imagine that these students are representative of those in your classroom. • Provide comments that you believe will move the learners forward.

12. Five Key Strategies for Effective Formative Assessment • Clarifying, sharing, understanding goals for learning and criteria for success with learners. • Engineer effective classroom discussions, questions, activities, and tasks that elicit evidence of students’ learning. • Providing feedback that moves learning forward. • Activating students as owners of their own learning. • Activating students as instructional resources for one another. - Black and Wiliam, 1998

13. Peer Assessment • “Many of the teachers found that students were much tougher on each other than they, the teachers, would dare to be. • Feedback from peers is less emotionally ‘loaded’ than feedback from those in authority and is more easily accepted as well.” • Black, et. al., 2003, p. 77