How to Give Feedback That Actually Improves Student Learning
๐ฆ๐๐ผ๐ฝ ๐ฏ๐ฒ๐ถ๐ป๐ด ๐๐ต๐ฒ "๐ฎ๐ป๐๐๐ฒ๐ฟ ๐ธ๐ฒ๐." ๐๐ฒ๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ป ๐ต๐ผ๐ ๐๐ผ ๐๐ต๐ถ๐ณ๐ ๐ณ๐ฟ๐ผ๐บ ๐๐๐บ๐บ๐ฎ๐๐ถ๐๐ฒ ๐ด๐ฟ๐ฎ๐ฑ๐ถ๐ป๐ด ๐๐ผ ๐ณ๐ฒ๐ฒ๐ฑ๐ฏ๐ฎ๐ฐ๐ธ ๐น๐ผ๐ผ๐ฝ๐ ๐๐ต๐ฎ๐ ๐ฏ๐๐ถ๐น๐ฑ ๐๐ฟ๐๐ฒ ๐๐๐๐ฑ๐ฒ๐ป๐ ๐ฎ๐ด๐ฒ๐ป๐ฐ๐.
Teacher feedback is one of the most powerful tools in the classroomโbut most grading systems donโt actually improve learning.
In this episode of Your Morning Boost, we break down how to move beyond traditional grading and use feedback to build student independence and deeper understanding.
Youโll learn:
โ Why grades often stop learning instead of supporting it
โ The difference between corrective feedback and process feedback
โ Practical strategies you can use in your classroom tomorrow
- If youโve ever wondered how to make feedback more meaningful (and less exhausting), this episode is for you.
Links referenced in this episode:
Mentioned in this episode:
Grundmeyer Leader Services
Grundmeyer Leader Services (GLS) is a premier leadership search and consulting firm dedicated to "Transforming Education One Leader at a Time." Whether you are a school board looking for your next visionary superintendent or an educator ready to take the next step in your career, GLS provides the expertise, data, and national network to ensure the right fit for every district. How GLS Supports the ForwardEd Community: Executive Search: Comprehensive recruitment for Superintendents, Principals, Athletic Directors, and School Business Officials. Leadership Development: Tailored workshops, board retreats, and administrative coaching to strengthen existing teams. Applicant Resources: Mock interviews, resume reviews, and the Applicant Insights Workshop to help educators land their dream leadership roles. Visit: www.grundmeyerleadersearch.com to view active searches or learn how GLS can support your districtโs leadership transition.
Transcript
If you could walk into your classroom tomorrow and find that every single student knew exactly where they were in their learning and more importantly, exactly what they needed to do next, how would that change your Thursday?
Speaker A:We spend so much of our professional lives being the answer key for all of our students.
Speaker A:We carry home the stacks of papers, we mark the margins with red ink, and we assign the percentages.
Speaker A:But have you ever stopped to wonder if all that effort is actually helping them grow?
Speaker A:Or if it's just teaching them how to wait for permission to move forward?
Speaker A:Today we're looking at the quiet power of feedback, not as a way to grade a past performance, but as a tool to hand the steering wheel back to our students.
Speaker B:This is your Morning Boost from the AWB Studios.
Speaker B:This is your weekly Morning Boost brought to you by AWB Education.
Speaker B:We are proud to be be featured on the Forward Ed Network, Advancing Voices Shaping Education.
Speaker B:Let's get ready to boost your week.
Speaker A:Good morning and welcome back everybody.
Speaker A:Welcome to your Morning Boost.
Speaker A:Today on this wonderful Wednesday, we are happy to be part of the Forward Ed Network.
Speaker A:Check out some of our other shows that are on that network.
Speaker A:If you're a regular booster, it's so good to be back in your ears this week.
Speaker A:And if you're joining us for the very first time, maybe you're driving into the parking lot right now or you've got your earbuds on while you're prepping your coffee in the lounge.
Speaker A:Either way, we are so incredibly glad that you are here today.
Speaker A:We're diving into a topic that is both the oldest trick in the book and the most understood tool in our kit.
Speaker A:That's feedback.
Speaker A:But specifically, we're talking about feedback through the lens of agency.
Speaker A:At your Morning Boost, we believe leadership exists in every seat, and we talk a lot about how you as an educator are a leader regardless of your job title.
Speaker A:But that philosophy extends to our students too.
Speaker A:When we talk about student agency, we're talking about their ability to lead their own learning, to own it, to feel like they aren't just passengers on a bus that we are driving, but that they have a map and they have a compass of their own.
Speaker A:And the primary way we hand over that compass is through the way we communicate about their progress.
Speaker A:I've been thinking about this a lot lately because I was reading some work by John Hattie.
Speaker A:We all know who that is, and many of you know his massive meta analysis on what actually works in schools.
Speaker A:And Hattie often points out that feedback is one of the highest impact strategies we have.
Speaker A:But There's a catch, he says, that the most powerful feedback isn't necessarily what the teacher gives to the student, but what the teacher receives from the student about what they understand.
Speaker A:It's a shift in power dynamics.
Speaker A:It's moving away from being the judge and toward being a partner into thinking.
Speaker A:So today we're going to break that down.
Speaker A:We'll look at why feedback is the fuel for agency and how we can shift from summative end of the road marks to formative middle of the climb conversations.
Speaker A:And we'll talk through some very practical, low stakes ways to start shifting that power dynamic in your classroom tomorrow.
Speaker A:at a Time now let's start in a place that's familiar to all of us.
Speaker A:The Sunday night grading session.
Speaker A:You've got the stack.
Speaker A:You've got your favorite red pen.
Speaker A:You're looking for errors.
Speaker A:You're looking for where they missed the mark.
Speaker A:And in our heads we feel like we are being helpful.
Speaker A:We think if I show them exactly where they went wrong, they won't do it again.
Speaker A:But let's look at it from the student's perspective, whether that's a third grader or a high school junior.
Speaker A:When a student receives a paper that is covered in corrections and has a single letter grade at the top, the learning usually stops right there.
Speaker A:The grade is a period at the end of a sentence.
Speaker A:It's the final verdict.
Speaker A:Psychologically, once a summative mark is given, the brain often moves into sorting mode.
Speaker A:Am I an A student?
Speaker A:Am I a C student?
Speaker A:It rarely moves into growth mode.
Speaker A:Research into self regulated learning tells us that for students to truly take control, to have agency, they need to be able to monitor their own progress.
Speaker A:But they can't monitor what they don't understand.
Speaker A:If they are always waiting for us to tell them if they did a good job, we are inadvertently creating a culture of compliance rather than a culture of agency.
Speaker A:We are training them to be teacher dependent.
Speaker A:When a student says is this what you want?
Speaker A:They aren't asking about the quality of the work, they are asking for the code to your specific grading lock.
Speaker A:I remember a conversation I had with a middle school teacher recently.
Speaker A:She told me that she stopped grading rough drafts entirely.
Speaker A:She realized that by putting a grade on the draft, the kids weren't actually reading her comments, they were just checking the score.
Speaker A:So she shifted.
Speaker A:She started giving feedback only loops.
Speaker A:She'd write things like, I see what you're trying to do in paragraph two, but I got a little lost.
Speaker A:How could you connect this back to your main argument?
Speaker A:I mean, notice the shift there.
Speaker A:It's not a correction, it's a question.
Speaker A:It's an invitation for the student to exert their own agency to fix the problem.
Speaker A:You aren't fixing the plumbing.
Speaker A:You're handing them the wrench in pointing to the leak.
Speaker A:This is where we start to shift the power when we move from corrective feedback or fixing it for them to process feedback, where we prompt them to think.
Speaker A:This is how we're building their metacognitive muscles.
Speaker A:We are teaching them that their effort has a direct impact on the outcome.
Speaker A:And this isn't just for teachers.
Speaker A:Think about our instructional coaches or our building administrators.
Speaker A:How often do we do this with our staff?
Speaker A:When we walk through a classroom, do you leave a checklist of what was missing?
Speaker A:Or do we leave a reflective prompt that honors the teacher's agency to adjust their own practice?
Speaker A:Leadership from any seat means that recognizing that the person doing the work is the one who should be doing the thinking.
Speaker A:If you do the thinking for the student, you are the one getting the education, not them.
Speaker B:You're doing incredible work in your classroom and community.
Speaker B:Isn't it time the world heard about it?
Speaker B:Welcome to the Commons, a dedicated podcast channel on the Forward Ed Network built specifically for educational professionals like you.
Speaker B:We provide the platform at no cost.
Speaker B:You bring the ideas and the passion.
Speaker B:We provide the reach to share them with the field.
Speaker B:Ready to start your broadcast?
Speaker B:Ready to share your knowledge with others?
Speaker B:Email us at admin and join the conversation today.
Speaker A:Now let's get into the how.
Speaker A:If we want feedback to foster agency, we have to look at the types of feedback that we're prioritizing.
Speaker A:There's a beautiful line in the research from Kara Samboud where they talk about feedback literacy.
Speaker A:They argue that feedback isn't something a teacher does to a student.
Speaker A:It's a dialogic process.
Speaker A:It's a conversation.
Speaker A:If we want students to own the journey, we have to involve them in the assessment of it.
Speaker A:This means prioritizing three formative feedback, peer to peer feedback, and the holy grail of Agency, honestly, is self assessment.
Speaker A:First, let's talk about formative feedback.
Speaker A:And I want you to think of three things.
Speaker A:A gps, an autopsy, and a physical.
Speaker A:We need to change the way that we visualize assessment.
Speaker A:Too often traditional grading is it's an autopsy.
Speaker A:It happens after the learning is dead and buried.
Speaker A:It tells you why the student failed, but it's too late to save any of the work.
Speaker A:On the other end.
Speaker A:We have the gps.
Speaker A:This is giving turn by turn directions while the car is moving.
Speaker A:Now we can do that for our students too.
Speaker A:It's certainly better than an autopsy, but we can give those guided directions and guided feedback as they're moving on.
Speaker A:But I want to offer a third metaphor here, and that's the physical exam.
Speaker A:Think about when you go to the doctor.
Speaker A:When you're going for your physical, they check your vitals, they ask about your habits, they look for potential issues before they become emergencies.
Speaker A:A physical is diagnostic, it's collaborative and it's proactive.
Speaker A:When we treat our feedback like a physical, we are telling the student we're checking the health of your learning right now so you have the strength to reach the finish line.
Speaker A:It's moving away from being a coroner and toward being a primary care provider for their growth.
Speaker A:Now this physical approach to feedback looks like a quick check in.
Speaker A:It's the teacher sitting on the corner of a desk looking at a half finished math problem and saying, well, tell me about your strategy here.
Speaker A:I see a pulse of a great idea.
Speaker A:But your blood pressure, the logic is getting a bit high in that step three.
Speaker A:So let's look at that, look at how supportive that is and it's not punitive.
Speaker A:Now second, we do have peer to peer feedback and we're, we're building that evaluative judgment from our students.
Speaker A:This is often where we get nervous.
Speaker A:We think, can a 10 year old really give good feedback?
Speaker A:And the answer is yes, if we teach them how.
Speaker A:When students give feedback to each other, they are forced to look at a rubric or success criteria through someone else's work.
Speaker A:It builds what researchers call evaluative judgment.
Speaker A:They start to recognize what good looks like.
Speaker A:And once they can recognize it in their peers work, they're infinitely more likely to recognize it or the lack of it in their own.
Speaker A:If you don't believe me, think about how easy it is to find the mistakes in a colleague's email compared to finding one in your own.
Speaker A:Our brains are wired to see patterns in others first.
Speaker A:And we can use that biological reality to train students brains to see patterns of Quality.
Speaker A:Now the ultimate one, the self assessment.
Speaker A:That's the goal that every educator should try to put ourselves out of a job.
Speaker A:I mean seriously, when students would look at their own work and say, I didn't quite hit the mark on the conclusion there and I need to go back and look at my evidence, that is agency in its purest form.
Speaker A:But self assessment doesn't just happen by ourselves.
Speaker A:So trust me, your job is still safe.
Speaker A:It doesn't just happen by saying grade yourself.
Speaker A:It happens by co constructing success criteria.
Speaker A:I mean, think about that.
Speaker A:Imagine a classroom where before the project starts, the teacher and the students look at three different examples of past work.
Speaker A:One that's great, one that's okay, and maybe one that's poor.
Speaker A:And they decide what makes the great one great.
Speaker A:When they build the rubric, they own the rubric.
Speaker A:And when they own the rubric, the feedback they give themselves isn't a guess.
Speaker A:It's an exercise in agency.
Speaker A:I want to share a story from a school I came across in some recent reading.
Speaker A:It was a public school.
Speaker A:Public middle school decided to go all in on feedback loops.
Speaker A:They implemented a no grade until the end policy for their major projects.
Speaker A:And for six weeks students worked through cycles.
Speaker A:They would produce a draft, get peer feedback using a specific tag method like tell me something you like, ask a question, give a suggestion, and then have five minute conferences with the teacher.
Speaker A:The teachers reported something that I thought was fascinating.
Speaker A:Usually about 20% of kids would check out.
Speaker A:They would call it halfway through the project.
Speaker A:But in this model, engagement stayed near 100%.
Speaker A:Well, why they feel it was because the students felt like they were in a video game.
Speaker A:In a video game, if you die on level one, the game doesn't give you a D minus and tell you to move to level two.
Speaker A:It gives you immediate feedback, lets you keep your gear, and tells you to try again.
Speaker A:And that's what these feedback loops did.
Speaker A:They removed the fear of failure and replaced it with the joy of iteration.
Speaker A:So how do we do this?
Speaker A:Starting tomorrow, you don't have to overhaul your whole grading system by 8 o'.
Speaker A:Clock.
Speaker A:Trust me, that's not going to work for you anyway.
Speaker A:But just think about maybe something like a feedback folder.
Speaker A:Have students keep a folder of their own work where the only thing that goes inside that is their work.
Speaker A:And the feedback.
Speaker A:No grades.
Speaker A:At the end of the unit, have them select their best piece of work and write a one paragraph justification of why it earns the grade that they think they should earn.
Speaker A:You'd be surprised how often they're actually harder on themselves than you would be.
Speaker A:But this really forces them to reflect on the growth, not just the score.
Speaker A:All right, I have another one for you here.
Speaker A:Now, we've all heard of the compliment sandwich, right?
Speaker A:You say something nice, give the critique, say something nice again, and it's very performative.
Speaker A:I mean, everybody sees through that.
Speaker A:Instead, here, try the single goal method.
Speaker A:Give one and only one specific next step.
Speaker A:Think of it like coaching a sport.
Speaker A:If a coach tells a player 10 things to fix at once, the player really will fix nothing.
Speaker A:They say, keep your elbow in.
Speaker A:That player can do that.
Speaker A:In the classroom.
Speaker A:Try something like your intro is strong.
Speaker A:Your next step is to find one more piece of evidence for your second point that's manageable, it's actionable, and it grants them the agency to succeed because the path is clear.
Speaker A:Last one I want to talk about is this draft versus done.
Speaker A:I know a teacher who has two stamps.
Speaker A:One says draft, feedback is needed, and the other says done.
Speaker A:Ready for reflection.
Speaker A:Nothing is wrong.
Speaker A:It's just in a different state of being.
Speaker A:The language changes in the room.
Speaker A:It makes the classroom feel like a laboratory or maybe an art studio rather than a testing center.
Speaker A:As we wrap up today, I want you to pivot away from the logistics and focus on the discovery.
Speaker A:I've been thinking about what happens when we finally step back and let these feedback loops run.
Speaker A:There is a specific kind of magic that can happen in a classroom when a student realizes that they don't need to look at you to know that they've succeeded.
Speaker A:That's a moment where they finish a paragraph, look at their own checklist, and give themselves a little nod of satisfaction.
Speaker A:That's what we're really after.
Speaker A:We aren't just teaching them to write better or to solve for X.
Speaker A:We are teaching them to trust their own minds.
Speaker A:When you go to your building tomorrow, I want you to look for these small openings, these opportunities to ask a question instead of making a correction.
Speaker A:Watch the sparks that happen when a student realizes they have the power to iterate.
Speaker A:It's exciting to realize that the most important leader in the classroom is might be sitting at a desk in the third row when they're finally realizing that they have the map and the compass in their own hands.
Speaker A:You're doing incredible work, boosters.
Speaker A:It's vibrant, it's meaningful, and it's changing the trajectory of these young lives every single time that you choose partnership over evaluation.
Speaker A:Go out there and enjoy those little light bulb moments.
Speaker A:You've built the environment where they can shine thanks for being part of the work and for spending your time with us this morning here on your Morning Boost.
Speaker A:We certainly appreciate everything that you do for your students and your community.
Speaker A:We'll talk with you again next time.
Speaker B:That concludes another episode of youf Morning Boost, an AWB education production.
Speaker B:To find more incredible content, be sure to check out other amazing education shows on on the Forward Ed Network, where they are truly advancing voices and shaping education.
Speaker B:Join us again next week.
Speaker B:Until then, keep boosting your impact.
