6 Simple ways you can give students feedback

Feedback is so crucially important to students. I always think of a soccer player aiming to kick the ball into a goal. You wouldn't tell them to practice for days then put them on the field and expect them to do well. Coaches will break the process down into smaller steps such as dribbling, shooting, passing and running. They will give feedback on each step including how well they achieved this skill before moving on to the next skill.

As teachers, with so many things to do, we often lose sight of those goal-setting steps and it's understandable with so many students in each class. We're all familiar with monitoring tasks at the start of new unit and the summative assessment at the end of the unit - but what are you doing in between these two points to monitor and give students feedback.

Here are my tips for giving feedback that will actually help your students reach their goals.

1. BREAK IT DOWN

It's seems obvious and as teachers we're doing this all the time but have you actually taken the assessment piece and broken down the skills students need in order to succeed on that assessment. If you haven't read my blog post from last week on backward mapping and data collection click here to read it.

2. MAKE IT TIMELY

Feedback needs to be timely. More so with young students who have a short attention span. There is little point providing feedback on an summative assessment piece three weeks after they have completed it as you'll already be working towards a new assessment. I aim to get my summative pieces back to students within a week of completing it. This means you can discuss their abilities to demonstrate these skills while they are still fresh in their mind.

The same can be said for formative assessment pieces, which I try to return to students the same day or the next teaching day. Pop quizzes give you a quick, daily opportunity to give instant feedback to students. 

3. BUILD A CULTURE OF FEEDBACK

Some students do not accept feedback well. Students who are not resilient see feedback as criticism. It's important to discuss these issues with the student's parents as well as with the student. Make the difference clear to students that it is not criticism and that feedback is essential for students to understand how well they are performing.

Build a culture of peer feedback in your classroom. Encourage students to give and receive feedback regularly to help students build resilience. Introduce the concept of 'yet' to students. I can't do this 'yet' is a powerful tool you can use with students.

4. KEEP RUNNING RECORDS

This is a strategy that is mostly used in early years teaching but can be applied to middle and upper without too much effort. A great suggestion from kindergarten_matters:

"I monitor understanding using running records, observation and questions during guided reading time. Conferencing during writing time, observation during maths time and always end with a maths worksheet or activity where I can easily assess understanding".

The key point here is - have a variety of methods to use. I particularly like the way she uses her guided reading time to ask questions. This is a great strategy for assessing your students abilities and giving them that informal feedback. In addition, I also love using conferencing one-on-one, which can be hard to do when we are so time poor but can give you real results in the improvement of their work.

5. KEEP IT SIMPLE

Feedback doesn't have to be overly complicated. Little Learning Legends suggest a simple but effective strategy for giving timely feedback.

"I get them to write their goals in their book and put three boxes next to them and I tick them off as we go along."

What makes this a great strategy is that that student is participating in the feedback process and using some self-assessment to monitor their own progress.

6. MAKE IT FUN

Here is a recent suggestion from Little Library Learners about a fun way to give students feedback:

"I love to distribute exit tickets to students to monitor their understanding of a new concept or skill!"

This feedback idea ticks all the boxes. It's a timely, simple and fun way of giving feedback and is actually something students can look forward to!

What are the best ways you've found to give students feedback?

How to use data collection to get the best from your students

Aussie teachers are tired. Ask any of them. They are tired for so many reasons. An overcrowded curriculum seems to be one point very Aussie teacher I've met agrees upon. It seems to be a trickle-down effect from knee-jerk political policy that seems to cram our curriculum with more and more topics to be covered.

What politicians (and those that have never taught in the classroom) don't seem to realise is that students need time to:

• be introduced to a new concept
• learn the skills required to try the new concept
• practice the new concept, repeatedly
• demonstrate their understanding of the new concept in a test format

These things take time. Lots of time. Time that the current curriculum does not allow for. Sadly, when a new concept or topic is introduced, rarely is an old one taken out. Thus we end up with 6 or 7 NEW concepts to cover in a 10 week period. 

Surely 10 weeks is enough time, right?

Of course 10 weeks would be fantastic.. but any teacher out there on the chalk-front will tell you that 10 weeks can get eaten up very quickly by any or all of the following additional activities:

• school camp
• band camp
• excursions
• incursions
• book week parade
• NAIDOC week parade
• ANZAC Day parade
• weekly parades
• parades, parades and more parades

Even if a child is away sick for any length of time, they miss so many key concepts that it can be impossible to catch them up. 

So now what? We're doomed!

Well yes and no. Here is my approach to the madness of our curriculum. It's not popular but it works for my students and that's all that  matters. I teach to the test. There. I said it. I'm not proud of it. I'm a teacher who has resorted to teaching to the test. 

Isn't teaching to the test' kinda old-school?

Perhaps, but let's break it down. We have been so caught up in the madness of C2C and all those concepts that we have forgotten what makes a unit of work. One of the reasons I don't call my products 'units' is because when you write a unit you need to backward map from the assessment (which each school develops themselves).  A unit without an assessment piece is like a burger without the bun. This is something that a lot of new teachers seem to forget. The assessment IS the curriculum. 

In a perfect world I would teach lots of different topics and dive deeper into curriculum areas but the curriculum is just too content-heavy for me to do that and my students' learning suffers on their test scores. 

Aren't students more than just test scores?

Yes. However, teaching has changed so dramatically in the last 5 years that teaching is about being driven by the data. 

Teachers aren't data collectors!

We are now and this is why, sadly, a lot of teachers have left teaching. Data should drive your teaching and not the other way around. This is the way nearly all schools have gone in Australia.  For more information about using data collection to inform your teaching practice read Hattie.

How do you use data to help teach your students?

Firstly I break the final assessment piece into small skills that need to be mastered. For example, a written task might require students to use compound sentences, figurative language etc.. These are the areas I need to teach and collect data on regularly to monitor student learning. 

I create my own pre-test based on the skills required and analyse that data. This tells me where I need to spend my time (which is valuable) teaching. 

After each lesson I encourage students to reflect on their new skill and every week I give a short pop quiz to see how students are going with this new skill. This data is where the real rubber hits the road. What this data tells me is where I need to work harder or can move to teaching the next skill. 

I keep this pattern up until the assessment and make sure I'm modelling all the time through my teaching and learning wall (Hattie's visible learning). 

The results have been amazing. I can actually see where my students are learning through my data collection. 

What about the creativity in teaching? Where does that come in?

In the concepts being covered. The curriculum is so overcrowded that THIS is where you need to get creative as a teacher. The concepts covered in each subject are the over-arching themes. They are the spaces within which students can develop their skills. 

What are your thoughts? Does your school let data drive the learning? Do you use Hattie?

Teaching ideas for Coles Mini Little Shop Collectables

I've written before about the power of using dramatic play to help teach literacy and numeracy skills (see blog post there) and how they help students to use real-world problem-solving skills and these new Coles Minis make a great addition to classroom activities. 

I realise that a lot of people are upset with Coles for bringing out lots of 'plastic junk' on the eve of a plastic bag ban and to some extent I agree with them. However they are here and like most shoppers I have them - so how can I reuse them? 

As a primary school teacher I'm forever looking for interesting and exciting ways to engage my students! Kids just LOVE these things... I mean they are going NUTS for them (some adults too!) so the minute you bring these out your students are going to be engaged no matter what and that is what every teacher is looking for - engagement!

Here are some fun ways to use the Coles Mini Little Shop Collectables in your classroom:

MATHS ROTATIONS

The most obvious idea is to use them in your maths rotations and let students buy and sell them but you will need a few of these to satisfy student demands as you don't want students shouting "I'm finished!" within the first few minutes - so to get around this let students create the pricing and money for their buy and sell.

This will force students to consider what prices they will need to set for each product and then the denominations that will be required for purchasing. I suggest one rotation set up the store with the money, prices and signage and the next rotation try the shop as customers and store keepers. You should allow that group to give feedback to the next groups about what needs to be fixed. For example, the first group might set the product amount of $2.50 but not provide any 50 cent pieces for the next group to give change. This activity allows students to start thinking outside the box rather than just being buyers and sellers. 

STEM IDEAS

Create a shopping cart for the mini products and/or shelves. To do this students will need to consider the height of the products for shelving (volume) and weight. By making a shopping cart, students can consider how big the cart would need to be to fit as many items in as possible, while still being movable. 

HASS - GEOGRAPHY

Bring in some life-sized objects and read the labels on the back (you'll need the larger versions to read the details). Where were these products made? Stick the minis on a large map of the world and have a discussion about the countries these are made in. 

HASS - HISTORY

What did families buy in the past? How were clothes washed in the 1900s? How has life changed from today? Use the minis as prompts for discussions and as part of a wall display to show how life has changed.

ENGLISH ROTATIONS

These minis make great little writing prompts. Provide sentence starters for students such as...

"Suddenly she noticed everything was much smaller..."
"He heard a banging noise coming from the laundry and raced inside to see the washing liquid was only 2 inches high!"
"The old lady smiled and placed an object into Sarah's hand. Slowly Sarah turned her hand over and peered closely at the tiny tube of toothpaste. So this was how the magic happened!"

HEALTH

Healthy foods sorts.
Which foods come from animals.
Natural vs man-made.

If you can think of any other ways to use these Coles Minis in your teaching practice I'd love to know below in the comments. 

If you use one of the ones I've suggested above please let me know how it goes using the #TechTeacherPto3 - I can't wait to see what ideas you come up with!

How to use Book Week to help you teach HASS

Book Week is an exciting time for any school and students just love getting dressed up. However, teachers often struggle with an over-crowded curriculum, so taking time out for a book study can be a challenge to say the least!

What I like to do is integrate my HASS subjects with Book Week through a Geography or History picture book. There are so many fabulous books for little learners but finding HASS-friendly picture books can sometimes be a challenge.

Here are some of my favourite HASS picture books I recommend for Book Week:

GEOGRAPHY

Me On The Map

A super-popular book for teaching Geography, Me On The Map is useful for teaching students about hierarchical levels of geography such as country, state, town and my home.

Animal Antipodes: Global opposites

I particularly like this book for teaching seasonal changes in different areas of the world. When it's summer here, it's winter in other parts of the world. If you dug down through the earth, where would you come out at the other side?

Got Geography! Poems

Who knew you could integrate Geography and English Language Arts? Does exactly what it says on the tin - Geography poetry for children. These would make fantastic wall displays!

Welcome to Country

Welcome to the lands of the Wurundjeri people. Explore Aboriginal connection to land and place in this beautiful picture book.

HISTORY

Timeline Illustrated History

This book has the most amazing illustrations of timelines! Explore the history of our world, culture, dinosaurs, Vikings, Azetcs and spaceships - each with their own timeline! Then make your own illustrated timeline for your classroom wall!

My Family Remembers: The 1960s

Perfect for exploring life in the past with today and making those important comparisons. This book has some great personal memories of people who were there. Also comes in 1950s and other decades.

In the New World: A Family in Two Centuries

This picture books follows the lives of two families, similar in so  many ways but separated by time. How are their lives and experiences different to ours today?

Australians All: A History of Growing Up from the Ice Age to the Apology

Australian History as presented by the wonderful Nadia Wheatley and Ken Searle.  A beautiful text with fantastic illustrations takes us through Australia's major historical milestones.

If you have used any of these books or can recommend some others, please leave your comments below!