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Compass PD Podcast with Dr. Carrie Hepburn
Compass PD Podcast with Dr. Carrie Hepburn
Episode 58: Beyond Words: Mastering Feedback for Better Student Outcomes
In this insightful episode of the Compass PD Podcast, Dr. Stephanie Brenner and special guest Constance Hallemeier, math expert and co-author of the Comprehensive Standards Guides©, discuss the art and science of feedback in education. They delve into what effective feedback truly means, highlight the most critical components of actionable and timely feedback, and explore strategies for incorporating research-based methods into everyday teaching. Whether you’re a teacher, administrator, or district leader, this conversation will equip you with practical tips to enhance your feedback practices and inspire meaningful change in the classroom.
Tune in to learn how to make feedback work for you and your students!
Hello and welcome to Compass PD podcast, where we dive into evidence-based practices and research-driven strategies that empower educators and leaders to make a lasting impact. That empower educators and leaders to make a lasting impact. I'm Dr Stephanie Brenner, your host, alongside the fabulous Mrs Constance Hallemeyer. Hello, mrs Hallemeyer. Hello, I'm super excited to have Constance here with us. She has a very wide range of knowledge, expertise and interests, especially in the area of math. I can say from personal experience that Constance has a very unique gift for making everyone feel like a math person. Mrs Hallemeyer is also one of the co-authors of the Comprehensive Standards Guides Comprehensive Standards Guides.
Speaker 1:Today, we're exploring the topic of feedback. Specifically, what is the most important aspect of feedback? We know there is a lot of information regarding feedback available and it can be really hard to decipher where to begin. Whether you're a teacher, administrator or district leader, our goal today is to provide you with insights and tools that help you navigate the complexities of education and inspire student success. We are engaged in the feedback loop even when we don't realize we are.
Speaker 1:Teachers are constantly receiving and providing feedback. Feedback doesn't just come in the form of spoken words, though Our body language, facial expressions, our actions and markings that we put on assignments all provide feedback, teachers. Just think about all of those rated papers or the conferences and any of the redirections you give to a student or even changes to your own daily instruction plans. It's all a form of feedback. Providing and receiving effective feedback that leads to change in behavior, which is the goal, is really hard, is really hard. Today, mrs Hallemeier is going to educate and inspire us so we can begin to provide more effective feedback to our students and get the biggest bang for our buck. Constance can you share with us really quick an experience with feedback that you have had that really sticks with you?
Speaker 2:I absolutely can Thanks. It's exciting when you get to go into other classrooms and see how feedback can be can implement change. One of the feedback loops that I saw that I felt like was most impactful was when I went into an art classroom and she had second grade students classroom and she had second grade students. They volunteered with their unfinished projects to share at the end of class and then the students in the class got to provide feedback about what materials they used, about what the shape looked like, about all of the artistic vocabulary that they had learned. The students who were receiving the feedback were excited because they knew their next steps.
Speaker 2:Oh, someone told me they think this would be a good idea, or someone said this, or someone said this, which makes me think about how I could change a piece of my art. And it wasn't until that point that I realized how powerful feedback from peers can be, but how powerful feedback itself can be, because those students, one, were comfortable enough to volunteer with unfinished products to get feedback and, two, they didn't take it as a criticism. It wasn't something that they felt like, oh, I must be doing bad at art, because they knew that the feedback was going to help them make their project better. So that's probably my favorite piece of feedback which has really inspired me to think differently about feedback and helping students to feel comfortable with accepting feedback, not as a criticism.
Speaker 1:Right and I. What? Two words jumped out to me while you were talking about that, and the first one was vulnerable, being that the kiddos who didn't have their project done, even if it had been finished to be they, were vulnerable enough to stand in front of their peers to have them tell them things that are not going well with their project and things that are going well with their project, and that can be really scary. It can also be scary to be the person to give feedback, because what if they don't like it? You know like that could be hard to do. The other word that jumped out to me is the word judgment judgment. People are judging you instead of trying to help you be better. The example you gave that just really highlights the power of the right intention of feedback occurring in a classroom and with second graders, like we're talking, seven and eight year olds.
Speaker 2:That's so cool, that's so cool they were excited. She only allowed five people each day to do this and I mean it was almost a race when she said they could put their name on the board. To go up and put their name on the board.
Speaker 1:So it was. It was just empowering to see how you know, even at a young age, that feedback really does have impact, right, yeah, the culture and climate of the classroom has facilitated that to happen, and that's really cool, I think of. If seven and eight year olds can do it, then why can't we do it as adults, right For sure. So the purpose of today's episode is we're going to hit three big things in the topic of feedback, and the first one is just really what is feedback? What is, how would we define, describe feedback for our own knowledge and maybe even to share with peers. And then the second thing we're going to get dive into is what is the most important component of feedback? Because, like I mentioned, there are so many different things coming at us about the area of feedback, and where could we start. The third part of our podcast today is going to focus on how educators can begin to incorporate research and evidence-based methods for providing feedback into their instruction. So let's spin Constance what is feedback?
Speaker 2:I look at it as an opportunity to help students grow, an opportunity where the students are finding out where maybe they made some mistakes, but how can they change those mistakes into valuable learning? What would help them move from A to B so that they're learning and getting better and growing as a student in whatever area they are working in? I also feel like it's a chance to help them identify, like, what are they supposed to learn? Because sometimes they're learning but they don't know what it is. They're like, why am I learning this? And you know some of them won't ask and then they just learn it because Ms Hollenmayer said to learn it instead of oh, this makes sense, I get it. It moves from here to here.
Speaker 1:So and it fits into this place, like I'm learning this so that I can do this next, right, right, I think something that you said really stood. That stood out to me that you was that it's anything that's helping a student grow. Was that it's anything that's helping a student grow and that can be kind of like what I said before, that words can help students grow. Writing that we provide on students' work, how we give feedback after an assignment is completed or at the end of a test or whatever. Those are all things that are providing information for students to go from point A to point B, and that incorporating it's a focus on helping kids know exactly what it is that they're supposed to be doing or learning while we're helping them grow or learning, while we're helping them grow Absolutely and I think about what you just said in the sense of feedback isn't always academic.
Speaker 2:Sometimes our students seem to grow behaviorally and so the feedback we can provide, even just with a look or where we're standing, becomes valuable to help them understand. Oh, that's not appropriate. I should move on to something different, and that's when you think about feedback from that light you, absolutely everything you do in your classroom is providing feedback for those students.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Or even the look can be redirective. But the look can also be like yes, keep going, Like I'm encouraging you, or just body signals like, yeah, keep going. You know just. You don't even have to say anything, you can just, and it can encourage the student to keep going in the right direction because you know that they're headed there and it's giving them a little bit of a confidence boost to get from A to B, and that's really important for our students Absolutely. When you think all about feedback, what do you think is the most important component of feedback?
Speaker 2:There's so many pieces to pick from. Is it specific, Is it timely? Is it actionable? Does it align with learning targets? Is it motivating? So there's so many pieces and I feel like the and I'm not going to pick one. Sorry, Stephanie, I'm going to pick two.
Speaker 2:I'm going to say it's a toss up between being timely and actionable, because I think those two things have to go together. Timely are they getting it in close proximity to the learning and the modeling of the learning right? And because if it's not timely, if you hand back a test three weeks after you gave a test and then you provide feedback, the students aren't going to be in that mind space anymore. It would be like in the art example if they waited four weeks after they worked on it to then get feedback, the kids would be like, okay, that's great, but I'm not doing anything with it because we're already on something else. So I feel like that timely piece is wildly important. But then the other piece that fits with it really close is the actionable, Because feedback is to help students grow. If we don't make it actionable, if we don't show them in a progression where they are in their learning, they're not going to know how to grow and so providing them. Now what? Now what? How can I take what you just gave me and use it to get better the next time I try something?
Speaker 2:So I think about the feedback that the students were getting in that art example. They got feedback from their peers about something they could do or change Not always, but sometimes and then they had the choice Do I do that or do I not do that? But it was actionable, Something they could do to make their project better. So timely and actionable, and they really have to go together. Because if you're timely but not actionable, great, the students know, they know how to do it or they don't. But if it's actionable but not timely, they're going to be like, why do I have to fix that? But if it's together, then they understand why and what. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:I was like furiously writing down things that you said and I couldn't keep up so I had to stop writing and just listen, because you were making so many connections for me and said so many wonderful things. One of the things that really popped out for me when it comes to feedback is the assessments, and I think that that's a lot of what's on teachers and leaders' minds are assessments, and I think that that's a lot of what's on teachers' and leaders' minds are assessments. Typically we talk about formative assessments or summative assessments, and assessments are a form of feedback, and how we use those assessments makes it formative or summative. So I always think of formative assessments is to form instruction or form your next steps and provide that very actionable, timely feedback to students. You need this now so you can get to where I want you to be. And then summative is kind of that. I'm not really going to do anything with it. It's that end grade. You're telling me how I did and that's kind of nice. I want to know how I did, but it's too late to do anything with it in some instances.
Speaker 1:That's not always the case. Your summative can become formative and that happens and that gets really muddy. But that summative type of feedback feels just like a grade and I can't change it. Where formative is that conversation, the dialogue? Or could be a quiz, or just this work you got from homework or whatever, and it helps you know where you are in that progression of learning so that you know how to grow, like you said that and I was like, oh, that's a good quote, stephanie, so make sure I write that down. And the other thing I thought Constance was one of my doctoral classes. Our professor told us that feedback isn't feedback unless the other person does something with it. So I can give you feedback, I can say all the things, those peers could say all the things, but until the other person does something with it, makes a decision about it, it's not really feedback. About it, it's not really feedback.
Speaker 2:Right, I like that the way to think about it because, yeah, and I'm relating it to math in my brain mostly. I know my example was art, but I'm relating it back to math quite often and if we provide feedback for a student in math, it's often to help them learn where their mistake was, and if they don't do anything with that learning, they're still going to continue to make the same mistakes, and so, absolutely, we want them to grow from the feedback they're getting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's the point of doing all the feedback is to help people become a better version of themselves or help make something a task that they're doing easier or correct. So, when you think about all of the things about feedback, how can educators begin to incorporate research-based and evidence-based methods for providing feedback?
Speaker 2:My biggest suggestion would be start somewhere. Pick something that you feel like you can conquer or incorporate into your classroom without creating awkwardness, something that you're comfortable doing. Maybe you want to start with being specific with your students because you know that you can make your feedback more than just great job or you did it. But you can be intentional about being specific, but maybe that's not where you want to start. Maybe you're like timely. You know what I need to do a better job of giving students immediate feedback. I'm going to set up a way in my room where I can rotate through so I can get to all of my students and give them one piece of feedback during a class period. Maybe that's where your goal is. Maybe it's to be actionable. Maybe you create a list of things that you know are common mistakes or common places of entry for feedback and you carry that little list with you to make it actionable for your students, so that you know if a student is here you can say this to help them move to there.
Speaker 2:Maybe it's motivational, because sometimes our students just need to be motivated to love learning and so maybe it's specific, motivational, like maybe that's your intention. But pick somewhere, because if you don't pick somewhere, you go nowhere. We absolutely want our feedback to get our students to those learning targets, and so start somewhere. Maybe you do it for a week and you're like, yeah, I got this one, I'm going to add another one. Maybe it takes you a month to feel comfortable with it. Perfect, started something else, add to it, because if you again don't start somewhere, then you get nowhere. So that would be my biggest advice is to just start somewhere.
Speaker 1:Something. I that you were talking about that and you'd said these things earlier, and I think it's important that we point these out, that you were saying the same, like five things, five components of feedback. Earlier you said them and again you just gave really a specific example. So you mentioned that with feedback, the language could be very specific, that you can think about it being really timely, and that could be immediate or delayed. You mentioned that it's actionable, so I can do something with it.
Speaker 1:Versus good job, like good job, I don't know what I did well. Versus you're standing in line really nicely with your hands behind your back and you're facing forward. I know exactly what I did to get the good job so actionable. You mentioned that it could be aligned with the learning targets or the progression of learning. And then five, that it's motivational. That it's motivational. I think it's really important to point those five aspects out because that's what the research indicates makes feedback really effective and helps us get our bang for our buck. Yep, so if you had to think about it, what is one key takeaway or recommendation that you want to offer educators, leaders, parents or anyone who might be listening today? I?
Speaker 2:think that you're always providing feedback one way or another and keeping that in mind and then being intentional about working towards the evidence-based pieces of feedback so that your students start to see value in it. I would love to say that my classroom was at the stage of the art teacher's classroom and I probably had students who could do that, but I did not have that in every class. And so knowing where your target is with your feedback and working towards that target because you're giving it whether you know it or not, and so like focusing in on what intentionally do I want to do to make it better.
Speaker 1:Yeah, wow, constance, you're just so full of knowledge. I could talk to you forever about all kinds of things, even math. I could talk to you about math forever. So let's just kind of quickly recap what we've covered today and I'm going to try in my brain to capture it all.
Speaker 1:We talked about that feedback is anything that helps a student grow and it helps a student get from point A to point B and it helps identify for the student what they're supposed to be learning. And really the most important parts of feedback is that we think about the language we use and help it make it as specific as possible, that we're providing feedback that is timely, that it is actionable and it aligns with learning targets, that what we're wanting students to learn and that it's motivational. And really, if we had to pick one or two, it got to this case. Parts that we might focus on first are that it's timely and actionable, but they're so interwoven and connected it's hard to separate the two parts of feedback. The two parts of feedback. Also, we can't forget to be really intentional about choosing just one of those areas to start working towards so that our students reap the benefits. And I love what you said when you said that students see value in the feedback that we offer our students see value in the feedback that we offer our students. You're such a wealth of knowledge, thank you. I hope these insights help you navigate your educational journey more clearly and confidently. If you are interested in growing your knowledge of feedback, you are in luck.
Speaker 1:This month at Compass PD, we are focusing on the topic of feedback because we know this time of year teachers and leaders are often providing a lot of feedback leading up to this halfway point of the school year. All of our blogs and podcasts in the month of November will dive deeper into the topic of feedback, so be sure that you keep coming back and check them out. Please feel free to share your thoughts and experiences. I'd love to hear from you so that together we can continue to grow as educators and leaders. If you found today's episode valuable, consider sharing it with a colleague who might benefit from this message.
Speaker 1:On next week's podcast, our deeper dive into feedback is going to include a focus of the comprehensive standards guides, which are unpacked standards that include progressions and proficiency scales, so those two tools can help a teacher in the feedback that they provide a student. It is for sure going to be an incredibly powerful podcast and if I were you, I'd be marking it that be ready next week for that specific podcast. It's going to be really incredible. Thank you for joining us on the Compass PD podcast. It's going to be really incredible. Thank you for joining us on the Compass PD podcast. Remember, at Compass PD, we believe that every educator has the power to inspire, change and transform student learning. Stay focused, stay inspired and keep making a difference.