Strips of Feedback

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A public thank you to Ian and Graham for sharing some useful AFL techniques that I will certainly use in my teaching. I had the privilege of listening to Dylan Wiliam at a recent INSET and was particularly interested in the role of assessment and feedback to inform pupil learning.

Research has shown that comments, in place of grades can have a greater impact on pupil progression and learning; indeed any form of grade produced alongside comments can actually take away from the constructive feedback from the teacher on how to improve (perhaps the reason being that pupils focus solely on the grade/mark awarded).

With that in mind, in my most recent essay feedback I split pupils into groups of four and returned their work with feedback comments on four different strips of paper – their job was then to figure out which essay went with which feedback comment. This enabled pupils to appreciate different examples of work produced and the relative merits of particular pieces of work. This combination of peer assessment with teacher feedback can then lead into a discussion of the ‘best bits’ of each essay to form a high-scoring model answer.

As with Graham’s MOT feedback suggestion I wouldn’t necessarily do this with every piece of homework and some thought should perhaps be given to the make-up of the groups of four and whether or not grades/marks should be given at all, or with the feedback comments later on.

Nevertheless this might be an alternative approach to assessing and feedback, where pupils take away more than just the grade at the top of the paper; why not give this a go?

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