Have you ever spent an hour grading students’ work only for when you pass it back to them, for it to end up in the trash can within minutes?
I have.
It stinks.
I was left wondering what I had done wrong? Why aren’t students engaging with the data I’ve painstakingly given them to improve and learn? Why don’t they just magically apply what I wrote to them on their next assignment?
There is a lot of value to collecting data on assessments. It can be used to both better understand where students are at and also to evaluate the effectiveness of the assessment itself.
I’ve been considering lately how to best communicate that data to students to promote their learning.
One shift I’m pursuing is giving more written feedback and less grades/numerical feedback.
When there’s just a number to look at, it’s like a TL;DR (Too Long: Didn’t Read) summary. Students often glance at it and move on.
Whereas written feedback that describes what they’re doing well, where to improve and what steps they need to take to improve is much more likely to be engaged with. I could also communicate this verbally in-person or a recording. This would be a good framework moving forward to support learning in my classroom.
This is informed by Alfie Kohn's The Case Against Grades where he describes that:
"It’s not enough to add narrative reports. 'When comments and grades coexist, the comments are written to justify the grade' (Wilson, 2009, p. 60). Teachers report that students, for their part, often just turn to the grade and ignore the comment, but 'when there’s only a comment, they read it,' says high school English teacher Jim Drier. Moreover, research suggests that the harmful impact of grades on creativity is no less (and possibly even more) potent when a narrative accompanies them. Narratives are helpful only in the absence of grades (Butler, 1988; Pulfrey et al., 2011)."
Another shift I’m considering is giving students time to engage with the data they’re receiving about their learning.
I think especially this next year as I teach English Language Learners English classes, I
can give students space to revise on previous work in other classes as a way to support
their English Language Learning. I have faltered in the past in this area. When I move
the curriculum at a break-neck speed, there’s not room to pause and reflect on what’s been learned, where there are gaps and what students can do to support their own learning in light of the feedback they’ve received. This will help the learning and achievement happening in my classroom.
One constraint of this might be that it's more time consuming. But I'm all for the idea of going slow in order to go fast in order to support student learning.
Data can be so valuable but it’s almost useless to the learning process if students aren’t engaging with it meaningfully.
My hope for this coming school year is to give students better quality feedback and time to do something with it. My hope is that students will be better supported in their learning processes.
Sources:
Butler, R. (1988). Enhancing and undermining intrinsic motivation: The effects of task-involving and ego-involving evaluation on interest and performance. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 58,1-14.
Kohn, A. (2011). The case against grades. Alfie Kohn.
Wilson, M. (2006). Rethinking rubrics in writing assessment. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
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