{"id":1487,"date":"2025-09-17T21:46:04","date_gmt":"2025-09-18T01:46:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/baldwin-clt-teaching-times\/?p=1487"},"modified":"2025-09-17T22:10:38","modified_gmt":"2025-09-18T02:10:38","slug":"7-keys-to-effective-feedback-by-grant-wiggins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/baldwin-clt-teaching-times\/featured\/7-keys-to-effective-feedback-by-grant-wiggins\/","title":{"rendered":"7 Keys to Effective Feedback by Grant Wiggins"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Full article available here<\/a>. Excerpts below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Advice, evaluation, grades\u2014none of these provide the descriptive information that students need to reach their goals. What is true feedback\u2014and how can it improve learning?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

… Decades of education research support the idea that by teaching\u00a0less<\/em>\u00a0and providing\u00a0more<\/em>\u00a0feedback, we can produce greater learning (see Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 2000; Hattie, 2008; Marzano, Pickering, & Pollock, 2001).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

… Whether feedback is just there to be grasped or is provided by another person, helpful feedback is goal-referenced; tangible and transparent; actionable; user-friendly (specific and personalized); timely; ongoing; and consistent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Feedback vs. Advice<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

\u203a You need more examples in your report.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u203a You might want to use a lighter baseball bat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u203a You should have included some Essential Questions in your unit plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These three statements are not feedback; they’re advice. Such advice out of the blue seems at best tangential and at worst unhelpful and annoying. Unless it is preceded by descriptive feedback, the natural response of the performer is to wonder, “Why are you suggesting this?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As coaches, teachers, and parents, we too often jump right to advice without first ensuring that the learner has sought, grasped, and tentatively accepted the feedback on which the advice is based. By doing so, we often unwittingly end up unnerving learners. Students become increasingly insecure about their own judgment and dependent on the advice of experts\u2014and therefore in a panic about what to do when varied advice comes from different people or no advice is available at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If your ratio of advice to feedback is too high, try asking the learner, “Given the feedback, do you have some ideas about how to improve?” This approach will build greater autonomy and confidence over the long haul. Once they are no longer rank novices, performers can often self-advise if asked to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Feedback vs. Evaluation and Grades<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

\u203a Good work!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u203a This is a weak paper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u203a You got a C<\/em> on your presentation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u203a I’m so pleased by your poster!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These comments make a value judgment. They rate, evaluate, praise, or criticize what was done. There is little or no feedback here\u2014no actionable information about what occurred. As performers, we only know that someone else placed a high or low value on what we did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How might we recast these comments to be useful feedback? Tip: Always add a mental colon after each statement of value. For example,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

“Good work: Your use of words was more precise in this paper than in the last one, and I saw the scenes clearly in my mind’s eye.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“This is a weak paper: Almost from the first sentence, I was confused as to your initial thesis and the evidence you provide for it. In the second paragraph you propose a different thesis, and in the third paragraph you don’t offer evidence, just beliefs.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

You’ll soon find that you can drop the evaluative language; it serves no useful function.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Full article available here. Excerpts below. Advice, evaluation, grades\u2014none of these provide the descriptive information that students need to reach their goals. What is true feedback\u2014and how can it improve learning? … Decades of education research support the idea that by teaching\u00a0less\u00a0and providing\u00a0more\u00a0feedback, we can produce greater learning (see Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 2000; Hattie, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured"],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Kathryn Byrnes","author_link":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/baldwin-clt-teaching-times\/author\/kbyrnes\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/baldwin-clt-teaching-times\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/baldwin-clt-teaching-times\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/baldwin-clt-teaching-times\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/baldwin-clt-teaching-times\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/baldwin-clt-teaching-times\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/baldwin-clt-teaching-times\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1487\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/baldwin-clt-teaching-times\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/baldwin-clt-teaching-times\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/baldwin-clt-teaching-times\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}