Leader of Pedogogy
LOP Message
Tonight, when your child comes home don’t ask them, “How was school?”, especially if you know that the answer is most likely going to be a predictable grunt, or shoulder roll, an eye roll, or all three. Try asking them this question: “What feedback did you receive today?” If they reply ‘none’, then probe a little further: “What conversations about your work/contributions/answers did you have with your teacher(s) or classmate(s) today?”
Much of the feedback we provide your child happens in the moment. It could be affirming, through paraphrasing and/or building of a student’s answer, which they have contributed to during the class discussion. It might be the passing comment that helps them to up-level their work or perhaps it’s the demonstration of a particular skill. What this very small set of examples shows, is that the feedback isn’t about saying “Good Work” or “Great Job”, nor is it about saying “That’s not right” or “You have failed to…”. What the ‘in the moment’ or Descriptive Feedback provides to students, are practical, direct and useful insights that outline how to move their learning forward, in order to achieve the intended learning goal. The power of this kind of feedback is that it avoids marks, grades, or comments that judge the level of achievement. This results in, when translated into the cognitive learning space, the student not being blinded by the mark but rather remaining open to continued improvement. This is the kind of feedback we want your child to not only be receiving in every class, but to know that they are receiving it. By shifting the focus of your child’s motivation to move learning forward from an external drive of a mark or grade, to an internal desire to improve, we are succeeding in ensuring the vision of the school, which is to ‘develop students who are creative, confident and informed people, ready to make a real difference in our world.’
The progressive learning journey that the O’Connor Community is on, promotes deep value embedded in descriptive feedback to move your child’s learning forward. With no summative assessment in Years 7-9, the feedback that we provide students is absolutely crucial, in not only providing ways of improvement for students but also in providing teachers with a deepened understanding on how to improve or modify instruction, so that O’Connor students have every opportunity to access the curriculum and demonstrate learning success.
Descriptive Feedback also helps to give information to you, the parents and caregivers, about how your children are progressing in relation to the curriculum expectations. It also powerfully ‘promotes student ownership, responsibility and accountability for the learning.’ To help you negotiate the conversations about learning and feedback that you have with your child, Lyn Sharratt has outlined the three types of Descriptive Feedback- Oral, Written, and Demonstrative.
Oral – in the moment and on the spot. This form of feedback can be specific to an individual student or open to a whole class discussion
Written – directly connected to the curriculum expectations and the success criteria. Generally, this type of feedback includes one praise point and one or two instructional points that will help move the student’s learning forward
Demonstrative – teacher modelling the learning for students
Armed with this knowledge, you can truly help your child to consider the learning beyond the content. So tonight, tomorrow night and every future school night , ask your child “What feedback did you receive today?” They might not have an answer for you tonight, but in a week, a term, a semester, a year… see how their understanding of learning changes!
Eli Simpson
Leader of Pedagogy