3. Reviews/Commentaries
Shute,V. (2008). Focus on formative feedback. Review of Educational Research, 78(1), 153-189.
Shute conducts an extensive literature review of the research on formative feedback because despite extensive investigation, the author proposes, is still misunderstood due to conflicting findings and inconsistent pattern results. The focus of this review is that feedback must be “delivered correctly” to be effective. Therefore, Shute offers a twofold proposal: to understand the features, functions, and interactions of feedback in relation to learning and to use the findings to create guidelines for generating effective formative feedback.
The focus of this study is primarily on performing tasks and the identified issues are several. Correct delivery of feedback is defined and guidelines are proposed since most research on this subject concludes that feedback can enhance learning considerably if delivered correctly. The interaction of task and student characteristics is investigated to address the major gaps in understanding that still exist, inclusively, instructional context in the efficiency of feedback.
The author defines formative feedback (FF) as information intended to change a student’s thinking or behavior to improve learning. It ought to be specific, helpful, timely, and not judgmental. Types of FF are: confirmation of a correct answer, clarification of the accurate response, clues, and work examples. Previous research by Swam (1983) found that
Receiving feedback gives us an opportunity to change and modify our behaviour, in order to become more effective at skills.
A formative assessment provides informal feedback and information during the teaching process. This assessment measures student progress and performance thus allowing further improvement and development. It can also assess the teacher’s progress as an instructor, enabling the teacher to evaluate the effectiveness of their teaching methods.
In my point of view feedback is an essential tool for learners’ progress. If the student is not assessing their work then they are not learning and given feedback are vital to ensure best practice is maintained and the learners are achieving to their full potential.
3.4 In order to support pupils using formative assessment it is necessary to ensure all pupils are clear of the learning intentions of the lesson. They also need to know the reason that they are learning it and the assessment that will take place. A discussion with them will make sure that all this is clear. Success
The term ‘formative assessment’ is used to describe the activities and processes used by teachers and learners to gather information that informs future teaching and learning. Assessment becomes formative if the information gathered is used as feedback to adapt and modify teaching and learning (Black and Wiliam, 1998, p.2). There are a variety of different methods and techniques that can be used by teachers and learners that can contribute to enhancing learner progress. These include
If the feedback is questionable then it becomes useless because it is not trusted. Positive and negative feedback will be more readily accepted if it is kept even, if it is more of one then it may not be received well by the learner for reasons that become obvious within the learner’s behavior or work.
Throughout this process, I discovered that each student should have clear individual goals that are communicated to them through feedback on both formal and informal assignments. Providing students with choice in texts can encourage students to engage in reading texts that relate to their lives, beliefs, and values. When students need help with key skills, such as grammar or identifying evidence from the text, additional practice (i.e.: with the computer program NoRedInk) and graphic organizers can help students develop skills, practice, and apply learning to their reading and writing experiences. Frequent formative assessments help me to understand students’ skill levels with comprehension, writing, and synthesis of ideas and also allow me to track student progress. Formative assessments also allow me to provide students with feedback and communicate whether
Feedback is important in an assessment but it must not be negative, just be constructive but positive. You can use a sandwich approach; start with positive feedback, then constructive feedback, the ending on positive note. Giving the learner a positive action plan and reassurance that it can be achieved.
I disagree with your statement "To a degree the educator is esteemed responsible for drawing in understudy adapting through natural and extraneous inspiration, nonetheless, the student is the essential source, nothing is expert without their drive and longing to learn" (Bellamy, 2015). I recommend you read this article on “Focus on Formative Feedback” Full text at: http://myweb.fsu.edu/vshute/pdf/shute%202008_b.pdf.
Feedback is a vital part of the assessment process as it gives the assessor an idea of if the learner has met the criteria set and if they haven’t, what action is needed to achieve the criteria.
All this is in line with the LLUK Standard Domain E "The role of feedback in effective evaluation and improvement of own assessment skills."
The Role of Feedback in the Learning of Skills I have been given an assignment to discuss the role of feedback in the learning of skills. Feedback is associated with guidance in order to learn and develop skills. Guidance is information related to the task ahead, feedback is information about what we have done. As with guidance, the most appropriate form of feedback depends on the learner and the activity being learnt.
Assessment for learning is any assessment for which the first priority in its design and practice is to serve the purpose of promoting further student learning and enabling improved student learning through purposeful interaction and providing meaningful feedback. Formative assessment is specifically intended to generate feedback and feed forward on performance to improve, accelerate and enable learning (Sadler, 1998). Formative assessment can and should occur throughout a daily class, through implementation of learning and teaching strategies that lead to both oral and written feedback. The Formative assessment approach is equitable and reliable, producing some significant indicator of student developed understanding that links directly to the syllabus outcomes. This then allows the teacher or other students to respond by trying to
As a practicing teaching, I had the opportunity to assess students learning and provide them with feedback. This took place during a series of lessons (artefact 4) I taught to a year 8 Health and Physical Education class. Through the course each lesson taught and during professional experience, I formally and informally provided the students with feedback. There were opportunities to use formative feedback and assessment as well as summative feedback and assessment.
Recently, whenever I hear current teachers discussing about assessing students, ‘Formative Assessment’ is sure to be highlighted. Nowadays this method (formative assessment) is becoming popular among schools and is being applied widely in schools including my own school. Loughland and Kilpatrick (2015) identified in the few past decades, formative assessment has turned out to be the main goal for teachers and educational systems. On the foundation of Loughland and Kilpatrick (2015) findings and from my experience in the field of teaching, I found out nowadays teachers and school stakeholders strongly feel that formative assessment is the best method to assess in order to enhance students’ learning. For these evident reasons, I am interested in finding