Self-Diagnosing with Assessment Dialogues

One difficulty I have experienced with implementing more effective feedback strategies is that for my 11th and 12th grade students many of the quick feedback techniques are more appropriate for comprehension types of tasks, not for tasks that require an assessment of quality.  Chappius, thankfully, offers a few recommendations for getting students to self-diagnose first, so the teacher can then "tailor [his] comments to offer as much or as little help as the student truly needs" (pg.79).

Her first suggestion is to use an Assessment Dialogue form which has students explain their strengths and areas they need to work on, has teachers explain strengths and areas to work on, and then has students write out a plan where they explain what they will do now.  I have used another type of form with my students, but I think I like this one better.

Her second strategy is two color highlighting.  Students use the scoring rubric and highlight in yellow how they think their product lines up with the performance indicators.  The teacher then does the same with a blue highlighter. The text that is green signifies the areas that the teacher and student agree on; no further comments need to be made on these areas because the student already understands their progress.  The teacher could then provide additional feedback on those areas that were significantly varied.  This would save be quite a lot of time and energy, especially when I assess drafts of longer essays.

Occurs During Learning: the second characteristic of effective feedback

For those that know anything about formative assessment, this second characteristic of effective feedback is a necessity.  In this section Chappius asserts that:

Feedback can encourage students to see mistakes as leading to further learning if you plan time for students to take the actions suggested, before asking them to demonstrate their level of achievement for a mark or grade.  The time we spend giving feedback may be wasted if we do not build in time for them to act on it. 

For this to work optimally, the classroom climate has to shift so mistakes are welcomed in as much as they result in opportunities for further learning.  They provide information about miscommunication, missteps, and gaps; all of which can be corrected with further instruction and practice.

Because feedback can be time intensive, it is so important to use it effectively.  Time must be built in.  Nothing is more important than ensuring that students have learned the material- not coverage, not a pacing plan.  Nothing.  I like to move quickly, so to remind myself of this idea, I am printing out a turtle to hang on my back wall.  This way I will see it while I am teaching and remind myself to slow down, model, check for understanding, reteach (if necessary), give students adequate time to practice and improve.  And then, only then, move on.  Anything worth teaching is worth teaching well. 

Photo from fredsharples

Strategy 3: Offer Regular Descriptive Feedback

Chappius gives 5 characteristics of effective feedback:
1. directs attention to the intended learning,
2.  occurs during learning,
3.  addresses partial understanding,
4.  does not do the thinking for the student, and
5.  limits correctives to what students can act on

Taken together, these five characteristics are a useful distillation of much of the other reading I have done in the area of feedback.  Since Chappius lists Brookhart as a source, this does not come as a surprise. However, I do want to take the time to visit each of these five in turn to see what additional insight I can glean.

Photo by Phil Roeder

Starting a New Book: Seven Strategies of Assessment for Learning

I have recently begun reading Seven Strategies of Assessment for Learning by Jan Chappuis and am finding it quite informative thus far.  The seven strategies are organized under Where am I going?, Where am I now?, and How can I close the gap?.  In and of themselves, this grouping is not unique to Chappuis, nor does she assert that they are her creation.  However, what I am appreciating thus far is her clear organizational structure that is aiding in my ability to make connections among the texts I have read by seeing them within Chappuis' organizational framework.  So far,  I have only covered the first two strategies (provide students with a clear and understandable vision of learning target and use examples and models of strong and weak work), but I already can see how the elements are fitting together.  I will follow-up with additional postings to track my progress through this book, but in the meantime, I wanted to leave by sharing a link to a webinar created by the publishing company to cover the Seven Strategies of Assessment for Learning.