Effective Feedback for Teachers

• In Event: Saturday Roundtable Session 9:45 am
  In Roundtable Session: The Teacher Side of Assessment: Exploring Biases, Beliefs, and Attitudes (Table 11)

Abstract

Few ideas in education have had more profound influence on classroom practice than the use of formative assessments to provide feedback on student learning progress. Since Benjamin Bloom (1968; Bloom, et al., 1971) initially proposed using assessments “formatively” as learning tools, rather than as only evaluation devices designed to certify students’ competence, his ideas have become an integral part of instructional procedures at all levels of education.
Many writers have described how the feedback students receive from formative assessments can be used to document learning progress and to guide the correction of learning errors (Hattie & Timperley, 2007; Smith, et al., 2023). In addition, numerous studies have verified the positive effects of formative assessments on student learning (Kingston & Nash, 2011, 2015). Far less attention has been given, however, to teachers’ use of feedback from formative assessments to guide improvements in their instructional strategies. This paper describes three aspects of the feedback teachers receive from formative assessments that influence their perceptions of its usefulness and eventual impact on their instructional practices.
Methods and Data Source
This study was based on survey data gathered from more than 200 K-12 teachers and analyzed by two researchers.
Results
Conclusion provided a synthesis of three effective approaches that could change teacher attitudes toward assessment and feedback. First is teachers’ judgments of the trustworthiness of the feedback, based largely on the feedback source. Teachers don't always trust the same evidence as school leaders when it comes to determining how well students are learning. School leaders generally perceive the results from nationally normed standardized assessments, state assessments, and district assessments to be more valid indicators of student achievement than teachers. In contrast, teachers grant more validity to classroom observations, classroom assessments, and homework completion (Author, 2007). In other words, teachers trust their own evidence gathered regularly from their students in their classrooms.
Second is the promptness and efficiency by which the feedback is gathered and analyzed. Changing instructional practices to enhance student learning and increase teaching effectiveness requires extra work from teachers, especially in the beginning. This can significantly add to teachers' workloads. Without gaining evidence quickly that the extra work is worthwhile, most teachers will abandon their efforts and revert back to the practices they have already developed and refined in their classrooms (Goodson, Moore, & Hargreaves, 2006).
Third is teachers’ access to reliable sources of information on evidence-based practices on which to make instructional revisions. If left on their own, most teachers have only their experience and that of their colleagues on which to base instructional revisions. Others turn to opinions they gather from blogs, Twitter chats, podcasts, or presentations from charismatic consultants. However, if provided with structured, professional learning opportunities that focus on evidence-based instructional practices shown to work with students similar to theirs, the revisions they make in their instructional strategies are likely to be far more effective.
Significance
This paper discusses these three aspects of feedback for teachers and offers specific recommendations for implementation so that the instructional revisions teachers make yield demonstratable improvements in student learning outcomes.

Author

• Thomas R. Guskey, University of Kentucky