TLC 2 - Feedback and DIRT

 

We kicked off our TLC by looking at what staff have committed to researching and improving for this TLC cycle. We had a variety of responses, from looking at providing more supportive and developmental feedback for pupils to changing the style of their marking to use online electronic resources.

We looked at various methods of marking to provide effective feedback that builds pupils responsibility, resilience and reflectiveness. These included:

• Find Faults and Fix

• Plus Minus Equals

• The Dot Round

• Use of icons

• Triple Impact Marking

 

The key to using some of these types of feedback is to increase pupils responsibility by allowing them to take ownership of their feedback, by giving them developmental feedback it becomes their task to move their learning forward based off of the feedback. The dot round was used to build pupils resilience by giving them the opportunity to understand where errors are but not explicitly pointing them out.

By using these methods we hoped to build into the lessons effective DIRT, making it a regular section of the lesson.; If feedback and responding to feedback is something that students are comfortable with and do so on the recurring basis, then the students own reflective nature is growing too.

From this point Ravi introduced what she had been working on. This was a use of icons to help students focus and understand their feedback.


She set up a standard set of codes for pupils to read, then annotated the students work. The students then had to decode their code and work out what their feedback was. The benefits of this were:

• Students have to read their comments as well as their grade. (There is a lot of research to suggest that students rarely read comments when coupled with a grade.)
• Lesson time is not wasted deciphering my handwriting – Sir, does this say ‘elephant’?
• I win back in the region of one minute per student, or, let’s say, an hour a week.
• It can be used again – modifications necessary of course – next time round. It is also a useful tool for guiding future peer- and self-assessment

Ian introduced his work using the app Showbie. He had been leaving voice comments for his pupils. Pupils would then listen to the comment and work from their, leaving feedback and developing their answers in a dialogue about their feedback. This could be accessed anywhere by student or teacher and allowed for a variety of ways for feedback to be left by the teacher or student. This meant that pupils who wished to deliver work in alternative means, e.g. video, picture, etc, were included.


He found that the benefits were:

• It was fast. In the end I managed to mark 32 pieces of homework in 45 minutes.
• The feedback to the pupils was very detailed.
• As each voice comment could be up to 1 minute in length, the feedback could be a very detailed comment that could take some time to write.
• Most pupils found it easier to listen to this than read a long comment, they were not put off the way they would be looking at a lot of words.
• They could hear the tone in my voice, they knew when I has happy or disappointed. Any ambiguity was often removed.

As we moved towards the close of the TLC the groups got together to discuss how they are going to continue their work into the area of feedback and DIRT they wish to explore. Staff were looking at how to measure and record the impact that they will be making on their respective classes. It was good to see staff so enthusiastic about what they were doing and what benefit they would get out of it.

Roll on TLC 3 when we get to see the presentations of the staff.

Rav and Ian