Effective Scalable Approaches to Improving Classroom Feedback

• In Event: Practical Issues in Classroom Assessment: Deconstructing and Reconstructing Research to Offer Practical Recommendations

Abstract

Over the last century, a large body of evidence has shown that improving the quality of feedback to learners can have a substantial impact on achievement, which has led to suggestions that improving the quality of feedback to learners should be a priority for school improvement (EEF, 2013; Hattie, 1992; Hattie, 2008). However, while most reviews of research find the average effects of feedback to be positive (see, for example, Kluger & DeNisi, 1996; Hattie & Timperley, 2007; Shute, 2008), the effects of feedback on learning display considerable heterogeneity. For example, 38% of the effect sizes estimated in Kluger and DeNisi’s review were negative.
In their review, Kluger and DeNisi concluded that rather than seeking to establish the magnitude of the effects of feedback on performance, feedback research should instead focus on the responses of recipients, taking into account the context in which the feedback is given (see also, Winstone et al., 2017) and whether the effects were lasting and efficient.
In order to shed light on how the power of feedback to improve learning might be implemented at scale, this paper will report on a 20-year development and research program that explored how feedback could be embedded in a wider theoretical frame (specifically, classroom formative assessment), how teachers could be supported in incorporating these ideas into their practice, and concludes with findings from an evaluation of a suite of self-directed professional development materials.
The first stage of this work was to undertake what Gough (2015) has termed a configurative rather than an aggregative review of the research on feedback and related areas, so that the focus was less on determining the average effect of feedback on achievement but rather on more on defining the field of study (Black & Wiliam, 1998a). The implications of these findings for teachers were explored in a professional publication (Black & Wiliam, 1998b) which was followed up with a number of small-scale projects with teachers, which suggested that a focus on feedback and related areas of formative assessment was a powerful way of improving teacher effectiveness (see, for example, Wiliam, Lee, Harrison, & Black, 2004).
The next stage of development focused on how such improvements in teacher effectiveness could be implemented at scale, and at minimal cost. After a period of rapid prototyping, we established that teacher-led professional learning communities offered a promising way of supporting teachers in developing their practice of formative assessment, and after trials in a number of school districts, we produced a series of professional development resources, including protocols and resources for monthly teacher learning community meetings (Leahy & Wiliam, 2009).
A pre-registered, cluster-randomized control intention-to-treat evaluation of the program, involving 140 high schools in England, found that providing teachers with access to these materials, and giving them 75 minutes once a month (approximately 1% of their contracted time) to meet in teacher-led groups, with no external facilitation, resulted in a 25% increase in the performance of 9th and 10th grade students (Speckesser et al., 2018).

Author

• Dylan R. Wiliam, UCL Institute of Education