Topic Progress:

OVERVIEW OF “WHERE AM I NOW?”

Read the following excerpt from Jan Chappuis’ article on “Seven Strategies of Assessment for Learning.”

Strategy 3: Offer regular descriptive feedback.

Effective feedback can be defined as information provided to students that results in an improvement in learning. In our current system, most of the work students do is graded, and marks or grades may be the only formal feedback they receive. Unfortunately, marks and grades deliver a coded summary evaluation without specific information about what students did well or what their next steps in learning might be.

Effective feedback identifies student strengths and weaknesses with respect to the specific learning target(s) they are trying to achieve in a given assignment. It helps students answer the question, “Where am I now?” with respect to “Where do I need to be?” And it points the way to “How can I close the gap?” With those answers in mind, offer feedback instead of grades on work that is for practice and offer students opportunities to act on it before holding them accountable for mastery. Giving students time to act allows them to grow with guidance. Also, providing this kind of feedback models the kind of thinking you want students to engage in when they self‐assess and identify next steps.

Involve students as peer feedback‐givers. Research literature includes promising learning gains attributable to peer feedback (c.f., White & Frederiksen, 1998). To offer each other useful feedback, students must understand the intended learning targets, objectives, or goals (Strategy 1); be clear about how to distinguish levels of quality (Strategy 2); and have practiced with protocols for offering feedback in a controlled situation (Strategy 3).

Strategy 4: Teach students to self-assess and set goals.

With this strategy, we transfer the ownership of learning to the student. In essence, when we teach students to self‐assess and set goals, we teach them to provide their own feedback. To be accurate self‐assessors, students need a clear vision of the intended learning (Strategy 1), practice with identifying strengths and weaknesses in a variety of examples (Strategy 2), and exposure to feedback that models “self‐assessment” thinking: “What have I done well? Where do I need to continue working?” (Strategy 3).

This strategy is a proven contributor to increased learning and a necessary part of becoming a self‐regulated learner. It is not what we do if we have the time or if we have the “right” students—those who can already do it. Monitoring and regulating their own learning can be taught to all kinds of students, including those with mild to moderate learning disabilities (Andrade, 2010). Struggling students especially are the right students, and they have the most to gain from learning how to do this kind of thinking.

What are some important points about each of the strategies?

How do you (or could you) offer feedback to students?

How do you (or could you) teach students to self-assess and set goals?

Coaching Companion

Book Study Suggestion: How to Give Effective Feedback to Your Students. Brookhart. (2017).

Book Study Suggestion: Ahead of the Curve: The Power of Assessment to Transform Teaching and Learning (Feedback-chapters 3 & 7). Reeves. (2009).