🐲 Taming the feedback monster

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💡 THE BIG IDEA 💡

💬 Providing meaningful feedback to every student

Purposeful, efficient, effective instruction. That's the holy grail of our work as teachers.

We teach. Then, we assess what we taught. Then, we reflect and make decisions on our instruction going forward.

Whether it's whole class, small group, or one-on-one instruction, our job as teachers is in a constant state of reflection and growth.

But what if you teach multiple classes of 30+ students? How do you provide meaningful feedback to all of them?

In our post How do I give feedback to 100+ students? we tackle this question and provide some realistic ways to answer it.

In the post we discuss providing different levels of feedback. Whole-class, triaged, student self-feedback, and peer feedback.

Whole Class

If you see a pattern across all of the students in your class, there's NO need to write the same comment in the student work over and over and over again. Instead, share feedback on those whole-class tendencies with the whole class.

• 💡Use data from a review game -- Games like Kahoot! aren't just there for repetitions and because we like the funny gameplay music. They give us data that can drive meaningful feedback to students. If you play Kahoot!, it delivers instant data right after each question. That way, you can provide the most immediate whole-class feedback possible. With Quizizz, Gimkit, and other games where students answer questions at their own speed, you won't get that data until after the game. That's still very timely for providing targeted whole-class feedback. Learn more Powerful analytics in new, free Kahoot! reports take formative assessment to the next level.

Triaged Individual Feedback

Triaged individual feedback can help. Instead of marking everything, scan the student's work and pick out one thing (or two things or three things, depending on the activity, the student, and the length of the assignment). Give the student some actionable feedback on the focus points. Then, leave the rest of the feedback for another day.

• 💡 Scan, choose, and write - This is the simple, low-prep, low-tech option. The concept is really basic. Scan the student's work. Find the couple things you want the student to focus on. Write some feedback -- including an action point on what the student can do differently next time.

Student Self-Feedback

Isn't it even better to help students to become self-sufficient? To help them to learn how to evaluate themselves and their work, to improve it, and to judge the results? When you do that, your classroom becomes more student-centered (and less teacher-centered). They don't need us as much to get the job done.

And that's the point.

• 💡 3-2-1 self reflection - We often use 3-2-1 as an exit ticket for class and it works well to reflect on a lesson, day or even an entire unit. We can use that same protocol to encourage student self reflection too. Using this idea students will identify (three things they did well, two concepts they need to practice more, and ask 1 question of their teacher. You can modify this 3-2-1 reflection template to fit your class or use it as it.

Peer Feedback

As teachers, we strive to provide our students with quality feedback on their work. Getting feedback from their teacher is useful but getting feedback from their peers can be even more powerful. With peer feedback students provide feedback to one another using a protocol, sentence frames, or rubric. It's powerful because their audience has gone beyond the teacher and students get a chance to see the work that their classmates are producing as well their own.

• 💡 Two stars and a wish - A protocol like “two stars and a wish” can be an effective tool for supporting students as they work on giving constructive feedback to their classmates. It works like this. As they are reviewing their classmates work they find two things they like about it (stars) and one thing they want them to fix/change (wish). It's simple but can be used with any grade level. You can make a copy of this Two Stars and a Wish form along with sentence frames here.

🔗 Check out the whole post How do I give feedback to 100+ students? for even more ideas, resources and templates.

💻 Tech Tip

Get your own Project-Based Activity Expert!

Did you know that School AI has a variety of (FREE) personal AI assistants just waiting for you to use?

School AI assistants are designed to support educators by providing a range of helpful education specific tools that can enhance your lesson planning experience. It’s like having an expert colleague with you as you plan!

Let’s take a look at one of my favorites:

The Project-Based Activity Expert

🤔What is it?

The Project-Based Activity Expert is a specialized AI assistant designed to help educators brainstorm and plan engaging project-based activities for students.

🧐What can it do?

Here is what it told me what I asked what it could do:

“I can help K-12 teachers design project-based learning activities tailored to specific subjects and grade levels. My expertise includes suggesting engaging and educational project ideas, outlining the necessary steps to implement these projects in the classroom, and offering advice on how to assess student learning through these activities. Whether you need a science experiment for fifth graders or a history project for high schoolers, I can provide creative and practical solutions.”

How can I use it to help me save time?

On Tuesday we shared some ideas for end-of-semester projects.

Let’s take those ideas and level them up with AI

• Take one of those ideas from the post and ask your project-based activity expert to create a detailed lesson plan tailored to your grade level and subject area.

• Ask your project-based activity expert to create a rubric for your project specific to your class.

• Ask your project-based activity expert to brainstorm a list of new project-based learning ideas for your grade level and subject area.

See an example chat with the project-based activity expert

🔗 See an example chat I created brainstorming some end of the year project ideas!

👋 How we can help

There are even more ways I can support you in the important work you do in education:

1. Read one of my six books about meaningful teaching with tech.

2. Take one of our online courses about practical and popular topics in education.

3. Bring me to your school, district or event to speak. I love working with educators!