This document discusses effective feedback strategies for teaching. It explains that feedback should include both positive comments and corrections focusing on content and accuracy. Feedback should connect to the learning task, help students improve their writing, and maintain student motivation through clarifying questions rather than negative statements. Praising effort rather than ability increases student motivation and learning. Feedback should provide clear next steps for students and be specific rather than ambiguous. While grading can provide feedback when criteria are clear, feedback alone focuses on the writing process without assigning value and is less time-consuming for instructors. The primary purpose of facilitative feedback comments is to engage students in revision to improve their writing over time.

1. BA JED 422 DL
Principles of Teaching and Learning in
Jewish Studies – 10 credits
Session 5
Feedback, how to do it well? what does it
look like?

2. Aims
• Explain what feedback means
• Look at the different types of feedback
• Define what effective feedback looks like
• Describe the impact of feedback on pupil progress

3. What is feedback?

4. Verbal feedback
• Be sincere
• Be discreet
• Don’t compare

5. Written feedback
• Feedback should include positive comments and
corrections that cover content as well as accuracy
• Use a separate sheet of paper for your comments
instead of writing over students' work,
recommends Virginia Scott (1996), so that the
"paper is analyzed instead of mutilated" (p. 124).
• Focus on important errors which hinder
comprehension -- these are higher in frequency
and may stigmatize the author -- or which are
currently the focus of instruction.

6. Effective feedback
• Connect the feedback to the purpose of
the task. Are you commenting on what you
asked them clearly to do?
• Teachers should act as collaborators in
the writing process. Your objective should
be to help students learn how to write well.
Giving a simple grade to a written
assignment means that you judge that
assignment. Giving it feedback and letting
students revise their written work will
make your assignment be truly about
writing.

7. Effective feedback
• Facilitative comments maintain students'
integrity and help keep them motivated. Instead
of writing a comment like "Don't use this example
here", ask them a question: What does this
example suggest here? Negative statements will
shut down your students, while clarification
questions will help them express an idea more
effectively.
• Self-correction increases accuracy, linguistic
gains, and productivity. Make a few marks on the
paper, then pose questions and offer facilitative
comments. This process "forces" learners to
resolve questions they still have and come up with
the solution themselves (with peer or teacher
guidance as necessary).

8. Focus on process, not natural ability
Praising effort instead of intelligence increases
intrinsic motivation and provides a template for
students to follow next time. Researchers have
found that the type of praise children receive drives
the type of feedback they seek out themselves. In
this study, 86% of children who had been praised
for their natural ability asked for information about
how their peers did on the same task. Only 23% of
children who had been praised for effort asked for
this type of feedback, with the vast majority of
them asking for feedback about how they could do
better.

9. End with clear action points
Any feedback that doesn’t lead to a change in
behaviour change is redundant – there must be a
point to it. What do you want them to do
differently? What are they going to do after the
conversation to improve? The more detailed and
specific the action points, the better.
What Makes Great Teaching report.

10. Be specific
When we say something is “good”, we often
assume that people will know exactly what about
it was good. This is not always the case – especially
when you’re talking to teenagers, who, as a result
of their brain restructuring, can find it harder to
understand other people’s perspectives and
thought processes. The more detailed and specific
your feedback is, the better, to remove any
ambiguity. Rather than “good work”, say “The way
you did X was really good.”

11. What is the impact of feedback?

12. Grading
• Grading can provide valuable feedback when
the criteria for grading are clearly articulated
and shared with the students beforehand.
• Pre-determine grading criteria: clear
expectations.
• Make sure grading is valid and reliable.

13. Make a short list of pros and cons of grading writing.
What is your decision based on these notes? Would
you grade writing work? Why/why not?
‘Grading assigns value to student output, while
feedback provides students information about what
the instructor found to be well done and where the
content or accuracy of the text can be improved’.
Grading vs feedback?

14. So far…
The difference between feedback and grading is that:
1. feedback includes only positive comments to
encourage the development of writing.
2. feedback focuses on the writing process, whereas
grading usually assigns a value to a piece of writing.
3. grading has very clear guidelines as to what students
are expected to write.
4. feedback is less time-consuming for instructors
because it is holistic.

15. So far…
The primary purpose of a facilitative comment is:
1. to engage learners in the revision process and
improve writing skills (over time).
2. to make the students feel happy about their written
work and not feel bad about their mistakes.
3. to help the instructors think differently about their
teaching.
4. to find out what the student really meant.