|
Archives
Feed
them with Feedback
by Steven Rudolph
November 8, 2007
An important aspect of learning relates to feedback. While
we are in the process of learning, our brain looks for
indications that what we are absorbing or performing is
correct. This could be someone's words of praise ('That's
correct. Nice work!') or a word of caution ('Not exactly.
You're going off track.'). Feedback can also come from
claps, cheers, buzzers and boos. But no matter how it comes,
what's important is that it comes-and that it comes quickly.
As we learn, our brains are constantly in a process of
self-correction. If we don't receive feedback, the brain
does not realize it is making a mistake and it fails to
learn properly. Worse, if we are making a mistake, the brain
can learn something wrongly. Then we have to 'unlearn',
which can be very troublesome.
One of the problems in today's classrooms is that children
don't get enough feedback, and they don't get it quickly
enough. Teachers complain that class sizes are too big to
give individual feedback. Therefore, they often resort to
going over things with the whole class. For instance,
consider a teacher who wants to review the answers to a
test. She typically stands at the front of the room, and
quickly reads off the answers one by one, sometimes writing
a few of the answers on the board. While some students are
inclined to ask questions, others are afraid to do so, as
they want to avoid appearing foolish that they don't
understand.
Here's a solution: the teacher can create cards with the
answers on them. She can put the students in groups. Then
the students can take an answer card one at a time, and
check their answers against the cards. This gives the
students time to focus on the problems. Self-checking also
puts the students at the center of the feedback process
rather than making them feel like a faceless mass receiving
generic feedback from the teacher. Another benefit of the
group-checking method is that the students who got the
answer correct can give guidance to the ones who made
mistakes, thus providing them with personalised feedback. In
the case of subjective marking, such as essays, the teacher
can provide a set of rubrics/criteria that the student can
look for while checking (e.g., Is all punctuation correct?
Do all sentences begin with a capital letter, etc.).
So the next time you want to give feedback, try the
self-check method. At Jiva Public School, our teachers have
used this technique with all subjects-and they have even
tried it out successfully with pre-primary students! You
find that students will take much greater interest in
checking their answers and correcting their own errors. Feed
them with feedback and they'll be hungry for learning more!
Archives
|
