Descriptive Feedback A Powerful Tool for Raising Student Achievement

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Descriptive FeedbackA Powerful Tool for Raising
Student Achievement
Developed by The Department of Safe
Schools Single School Culture? for Academics
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• Why should we provide
• descriptive feedback to learners?

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Research overwhelmingly supports giving students
formative assessments that

• result in accurate information
• offer descriptive rather than evaluative
  feedback
• involve students in the assessment process.
• (Black and Wiliam, 1998)

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Quick WriteWhat is Feedback? Activity
Page 3

• Turn to page 3 of your Handouts Packet.
• Respond to the questions listed.

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Quick Write - What is Feedback?
Directions  Quick Write Respond to each
question listed below.

• List several words that come to mind when you
  hear the word feedback.
• Identify a time when you were given feedback.
  Did it help you? Why or why not?

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Lets take a closer look at feedback.
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Two Types of Feedback

Evaluative
Descriptive
Your Geometry homework is really improving!
You used the correct formula. Now go back and
check your computation.

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What Is Descriptive Feedback?
Specific information in the form of written
comments or conversations that help the learner
understand what he or she needs to do in order to
improve.
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What is Evaluative Feedback?

• A summary for the student of how well she or
  he has performed on a particular task.
• In the form of the following
• Letter grades
• Numbers
• Check marks
• General comments such as good,
• excellent, or needs improvement.

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How are Descriptive Feedback
and Evaluative Feedback different?
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Evaluative
Descriptive
Specific
Non - Specific
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Evaluative
Descriptive

• Analyzes and
• compares student
• work to
• Standards
• Models
• Samples
• Exemplars

Analyzes and grades student work.
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Evaluative
Descriptive
Is related to performance and the improvement
of performance.
Is related to a score by using letters, numbers
or other symbols.
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Why is Descriptive Feedback so important?

• It provides opportunities for the learner to
• Make adjustments
• Create improvement toward mastery
• of a specified standard.

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More about feedback What are the key
differences between quality feedback and
ineffective feedback?
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Quality Feedback
Ineffective Feedback

• timely

• delayed

• relevant

• irrelevant

• concise

• overwhelming

• specific

• general

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It is the quality of feedback that determines its
power.
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Descriptive or Evaluative Feedback?  Its Your
Turn.
Page 4
Turn to page 4 of your Handouts Packet.

• Directions
• Read the descriptive and evaluative feedback
  definitions.
• Read each statement on the chart.
• Identify each statement as descriptive or
  evaluative feedback.
• Be prepared to share your responses with the
  group.

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Descriptive or Evaluative Feedback?
Evaluative
1. Try harder next time.
2. You maintained eye contact throughout your
entire speech. Now, work on your enunciation.
Descriptive
3. You solved the equation however, you need to
include a written or visual explanation.
Descriptive
4. You made some simple mistakes on your
timeline. Make sure that your time intervals are
all the same length.
Descriptive
Evaluative
5. Your writing has definitely improved.
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Descriptive or Evaluative Feedback?
Descriptive
6. You made some errors on your graph. Go back
and check the names of your title, x-axis, and
y-axis.
Evaluative
7. 89 B! Good Work! I am proud of you. You
should be thrilled with your progress.
Evaluative
8. You are so close to proficiency. With a
little more work, you should be at a level 3.
Evaluative
10. Your topic sentence is clear your next step
might be to add concrete details to support it.
Descriptive
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What Does the Research Say?

• Clear, concise feedback matched to standards will
  promote student achievement. (OConnor, 2002)
• Specific, descriptive feedback that focuses on
  success and points the way to improvement has a
  positive effect.
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  (Davies, 2002)

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Its Your Turn!

• Turn to page 5 and 6 of your Handouts Packet.
• Read The Gift article.
• After reading the article, turn to page 7 and
  read the The Gift question.

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Page 7
The Gift Question
Explain how Pierres relationship with Red was
SIMILAR to Mr. Henrys relationship with Red, and
how it was DIFFERENT.
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Page 7
The Gift Top-Score Response Guideline
 A Top-Score Response will state the similarities
and differences between Pierres and Mr. Henrys
relationship with Red AND will use accurate
details and information from the article to
support the response.
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It is also necessary to look at a General Scoring
Rubric in order to evaluate the The Gift
question.
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Turn to page 8 of your Handouts Packet.
The General Scoring Rubric has the following key
points
4 points Students have a THOROUGH UNDERSTANDING
of the reading concept. The response is
ACCURATE, COMPLETE, and TEXT-BASED.
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3 points Students have an UNDERSTANDING of the
reading concept. The response is ACCURATE and
COMPLETES THE REQUIREMENTS of the task, but the
details are NOT COMPLETE or CLEARLY TEXT-BASED.
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2 points Students have a PARTIAL UNDERSTANDING
of the reading concept. The response is
ESSENTIALLY CORRECT and TEXT-BASED but the
information is incomplete or omitted and the
details are NOT COMPLETE or CLEARLY TEXT-BASED.
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1 Point Students have LIMITED UNDERSTANDING of
the reading concept. The response is INCOMPLETE
and has FLAWS.
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0 Points Students DO NOT HAVE AN UNDERSTANDING
of the reading concept. The response is
INACCURATE or the student has FAILED TO RESPOND.
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Turn to page 9 of your Handouts Packet.
Read Student Sample 1. It was given a Score of
4.
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Page 9
What kind of Descriptive Feedback would you give
this student?

• 3 critical areas might be considered
• Strengths
• Areas to Improve (weaknesses)
• Improvement Strategies (plan to
  improve)

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Use Descriptive Feedback Starters
Two things you did really well are
This is quality work because
Strengths
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Use Descriptive Feedback Starters
One thing to improve on
You need more of
Areas to Improve
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Use Descriptive Feedback Starters
You might try
Improvement Strategies
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Student Sample 1 Evaluation Score 4
Strengths This is quality work because you
identified several similarities and differences
in the relationship that Red had with Pierre and
Mr. Henry. You used accurate text-based support.
Areas to Improve One thing to improve is
your use of the apostrophe s. An s shows
ownership. You should have stated, Pierres
relationship and Reds relationship.
Improvement StrategiesYou might try going to
page 45 in Your Reading Handbook and practice
using the s.
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Its Practice Time!
Page 10

• Turn to page 10 of your Handouts Packet.
• Read Student Samples 2 and 3.
• With a partner complete the
• Descriptive Feedback Teacher Tool.

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Student Sample 2 Evaluation Score 0
Caution Often times with a score of 0, teachers
can give OVERWHELMING feedback. Remember to give
CONCISE feedback.
Strength(s)
Areas to Improve
Improvement Strategy
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Student Sample 3 Evaluation Score 2
Caution Many times students are satisfied with
getting a score of 2. Specific feedback will
help them get top-response scores.
Strength(s)
Areas to Improve
Improvement Strategy
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Pages 11 - 12
Descriptive Feedback Tools

• Definitions and Feedback Starters
• Improvement Strategies for Students

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References

• Black, P., Wiliam, D. (1998). Inside the Black
  Box Raising Standards Through Classroom
  Assessment. Phi Delta Kappan, 80 (2), 139-149
• Davies, A. (2000). Making Classroom Assessment
  Work. Courtenay Connections Publishing
• FCAT Reading Grade 4 Rubric Scoring,
  http//fcit.usf.edu/FCAT/rubrics/er2.htm
• Marzano, R., Pickering, J., Pollock, D. (2001).
  Classroom Instruction That Works Research-based
  Strategies for Increasing Student Achievement.
  Alexandria ASCD
• OConnor, K. (2002). How to Grade for Learning.
  Glenview Pearson
• Saphier, J., Gower, R. (1997). The Skillful
  Teacher. Acton Research for Better Teaching,
  Inc.