Feedback improves learning

How does formative assessment support students' learning? A recent international study makes it clear that the ongoing, interactive assessments within classrooms play a key role in identifying students' needs and in planning future teaching. Marion Meiers looks at the place of feedback in formative assessment.

Assessment in education serves a variety of purposes. The prime purpose is to support learning. Summative assessments such as tests, examinations or performances are used to measure and summarise what students have learnt. Formative assessments, however, contribute to a responsive, developmental process and focus on improving learning.

Formative assessment

Formative assessments are interactive and responsive, and help teachers to identify what students know and can do, and what they need to do next in order to make further progress. Formative assessments draw on many kinds of information, including observations of students at work, discussions about work in progress and finished work, and comparisons of work done at different times. Evidence from summative assessments can be used in formative ways, but much of the information used in formative assessment is found within the classroom itself.

In the everyday work of the classroom, the prime purpose of all assessment is to provide support for all students in making continuous progress in learning. Valid, reliable and efficiently managed formative assessment by teachers contributes centrally to students' learning. Within the classroom, teachers use a range of tools to assess their students for a variety of purposes and audiences. For example, the students themselves are the primary audience as teachers provide feedback on the quality of their work, suggest goals for future work and celebrate their achievements. Students also have an active role to play as partners with the teacher in discussing and reflecting on their learning.

An international study of formative assessment

The OECD Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI) has recently published a study analysing the formative approach to assessment in eight countries, including Australia.

Case studies of schools in this OECD study demonstrated how teachers used formative assessment as a framework for teaching and learning. Key elements were found to be the use of varied teaching methods and varied approaches to assessing students' understanding, in recognition of the diversity of students' needs. The classroom culture in these schools encouraged interaction, and students were actively involved in learning. Learning goals were clearly established, and were used to track students' progress. Feedback to students was critical, together with the ongoing adjustment of teaching and learning activities to keep pace with students' learning.

Teachers' feedback to students

In light of this reminder of the importance of feedback in improving learning, it is timely to explore this aspect of assessment. The classroom is a site where students' learning is highly visible. Teachers have access to a wealth of evidence about their students' learning, and are ideally placed to respond to this evidence.

Teachers give feedback to students in different ways.

Encouragement and recognition of achievement is part of this process. Feedback also comes in the form of oral or written comments on students' work, from responses to students' input to classroom discussions and from peers as well as the teacher. Including a sample of a student's work in a classroom display, or publishing it in the school newspaper is a form of feedback, acknowledging the value of the work. In relation to feedback, the OECD study found that effective feedback needs to be 'timely and specific, and include suggestions for ways to improve performance. Good feedback is also tied to explicit criteria regarding expectations for students' performance' (CERI, 2005).

Here are two pieces of writing, produced on different occasions, by a student in the middle years of primary school. Sample 1 is a one-draft piece extracted from the student's writing journal. Sample 2 is a finished piece, produced after drafting and revision, in response to a set task. Both pieces draw on experiences that this student has shared with her class—an event in the school and an excursion to Sovereign Hill in Ballarat.

A vignette: what kinds of feedback?

What kinds of feedback might the teacher give to this student? Is useful feedback on one-draft work different from feedback on carefully revised work? Will written comments be more helpful than a short discussion? For this student, will feedback on the selection and detail of the content be more useful than feedback on the structure and organisation of the pieces, or on the control of language conventions? What specific comments will lead to new learning? Did these tasks make the criteria for successful completion clear? Have the pieces met these criteria? Does either piece represent a significant advance in this student's work to date?

Teachers draw on a broad repertoire of experience and strategies in making decisions about the kind of feedback that will move students on to new learning.

Specific feedback

Both pieces suggest that this student has control over sentence structure, including quite complex sentences, a strong vocabulary and that she is able to sequence her writing in a logical order. For this student, further learning might be prompted more by a response focusing on specific features of the pieces, than by acknowledgement of established skills.

The teacher might give a verbal response to sample 1, commenting on the effectiveness of the student's use of the metaphor of a 'colony of ants' to frame the description. This could be the basis for future teaching and learning activities exploring the use of metaphor in the students' reading and writing, and become a jumping-off point for further learning about descriptive writing. In the context of journal writing, intended to provide practice and build fluency, suggestions for revision are seldom appropriate. Sample 2 is the student's response to a series of classroom activities arising from the excursion. The heading, 'Life on the Goldfields', indicates this piece is one of a series of short reports about the goldfields. In this context, an extended report on the Eureka Stockade would not be relevant. The piece is controlled, and comparison with the draft provided evidence of this student's capacity to edit and proofread. A particular strength of this piece is the way in which relevant information has been concisely summarised and sequenced. No unnecessary detail is provided, but essential information is captured.

A written comment on this piece, then, might focus on the conciseness and effectiveness of the summary. The student might also be invited to consider whether or not the inclusion of more information about how Peter Lalor had become the miners' leader would have strengthened and clarified the piece. In this way, a written comment, perhaps followed up verbally, could set up opportunities and purposes for this student to reflect on her work, and to consider specific ways in which it might be improved. The kind of teacher feedback suggested here goes well beyond generalised praise. It is focused on specific aspects of the writing, and looks to further improvement. It is prevalent in classroom cultures directed towards improving learning.

The wide range of summative assessments provides significant information about what has been learnt. Schools are becoming more strategic in using data from such assessments to plan for future learning. At the same time, the importance of formative assessment in improving learning must be highlighted and discussed in many contexts.

Reference

Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (2005). Formative Assessment: Improving Learning in Secondary Classrooms, OECD, Paris.

Marion Meiers is a senior research fellow at the Australian Council for Educational Research, and a member of the national executive of the Australian Literacy Educators' Association.

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