The value of feedback

Appropriate and timely feedback has a positive impact on learners':

• attitude
• engagement
• motivation
• behaviour
• learning
• sense of achievement.

Effective feedback provides the learner with information on:

• where they are going (their goal)
• how they are going
• where to go next.

The feedback you give your learner should be meaningful, timely and communicated effectively. Quality feedback is completely objective. As Wiggins (1998) states:

"Feedback is not about praise or blame, approval or disapproval. That’s what evaluation is – placing value. Feedback is value-neutral. It describes what you did and did not do.”

Types of feedback

Descriptive encouraging

Descriptive encouraging is a process of describing exactly what you can see or hear from a learner that you hope to see more frequently, thereby highlighting their competence and abilities. This can sound like, "I can see you are being very careful with colouring in the lines" or "I like that you keep asking questions when you're not sure.” By acknowledging positive learning behaviours, you provide feedback that the behaviour is desired and increase the likelihood of it occurring again.

Instructional feedback

Instructional feedback focuses on a cycle of cue, learner action, and teacher feedback. The teacher provides a cue for learning or behaviour (e.g., "When we do craft, we use soft voices"), followed by a learner action, and then teacher feedback in response (e.g., "Let's soften those voices just a bit more so we don't disturb others"). Instructional feedback may curb challenging behaviours and increase learner engagement.

Remember

• Know and consider the abilities, characteristics, and preferences of each child. This will make your feedback personalised and positive.
• Identify one aspect of the task or behaviour that the child has done well, and one that could be done better or differently.
• Pair feedback with a reinforcer such as a high-five, handshake, personalised message or token (if using a reinforcing system such as token economies).
• Feedback can also be non-verbal - from a simple thumbs up to using a visual reward chart.

Before you start

• Reflect on and review your instructional and feedback procedures, together with communication/interaction styles, to see what you would like to focus on.
• Develop and plan responsive and flexible feedback procedures appropriate to each lesson/topic that:
  • is more frequent
  • provides highly specific guidance
  • provides specific feedback
  • provides specific rewards.
• Consider if you would like to set up a token economy. A token economy is a system designed to reinforce desirable behaviour and learning. Tokens are small rewards that can be used to motivate learners during less-preferred tasks and activities.

Prior to the lesson choose, prepare and implement supporting visual resources such as:

• positively worded classroom rules
• directive visual supports, such as first/then visuals
• cumulative reward systems

It works better if:

• visual supports are in place and used as reference points for guidance and feedback.
• you focus on specific outcomes and expectation.
• you give feedback that is non-evaluative, immediate, enthusiastic, and varied.
• you accompany it with highly motivating reinforcers/rewards.

It doesn’t work if:

• there are no visual behaviour rules or visual learning supports in place.
• learning-based behaviour expectations are inconsistent.
• feedback is not linked to the immediate task.
• feedback focuses only on errors, offers no solutions, is negative or unvaried.
• reinforcing/token systems are unmotivating or are used to deduct points/rewards previously earned.