Making Feedback a Big Rock

One of my mentors, a History/English teacher named Yvette Woodrow, once told me to "Pick what you want to be good at". There's a lot to consider when it comes to being a teacher in the 21st century; first and foremost are our students - teaching them, assessing them, assisting them in their journeys through school, and fulfilling our duty of care as their legal supervisors. Then there are other elements of our job (and I don't think I could ever successfully list all of these here without missing something) so here's just a few:

• Administration pertaining to student attendance
• Programming / writing resources
• Building behaviour management protocols that can be used beyond the immediate time and place
• Monitoring and assisting in the welfare of students, also beyond the immediate time and place of the classroom
• Professional learning 
• Collecting data in support of whole school initiatives and student growth
• Timetabling classes and playground duties
• Organising excursions 
• Report writing and parent-teacher evenings
• Year Advising
• Working in conjunction for Federation to support issues such as staff wellbeing and Gonski funding
• Whole school programs separate to our assigned classes, such as: Literacy and Numeracy initiatives, supporting AIME and other diversity-specific mentoring, after-school homework assistance programs, Gifted and Talented projects, sports coaching, student-led discussion and special interest groups, Positive Behaviour for Learning, learning support, leadership programs, community links, debating and public speaking, Tournament of the Minds, music and dance and drama performance evenings, etc.

You would be hard pressed to be doing all of these things well all of the time. So when I went to the Project Zero 2017 Sydney Conference a few weeks back and was shown a particular video I found myself thinking of what Yvette said: pick what you want to be good at.

The video in question is Stephen Covey's philosophy on 'Big Rocks'...

This clip was used by Rachel Merhebi, a HSIE teacher from the Ku-ring-gai High School Action Research Team, in support of a session titled 'Making Feedback a Big Rock'. It put me in mind of Yvette's maxim because we can't do everything as teachers, just as we can't in life. We have to work out the priorities first and then make these the 'big rocks'.

Okay. Metaphor over.

Ms. Merhebi took us through a few ideas centered around feedback, some of which were influenced by the texts Power of Protocol by McDonald, Mohr, Dichter, and McDonald, and Feedback edited by Robbie M. Sutton. The driving question for this professional learning was: How can I help my students become more disposed to seeking feedback?

Part of this process is establishing the kind of feedback we want to provide for our students, and Ms. Merhebi drew the conclusion that feedback should be:

• Descriptive
• Goal-oriented
• Specific
• Actionable
• Constructive
• Timely

In the case of peer feedback, the main areas to focus on should for it to be specific and constructive. The reason for concentrating the feedback in this way is that when peer assessment is involved we want to keep in mind that it's just as useful for the student giving the feedback as it is for the student who receives it. I've found that engaging my Advanced English students in the process of giving feedback has been an effective activity in directing their focus towards discrete essay writing skills.

For the Preliminary and HSC Advanced English comparative study modules I've made use of a peer editing proforma as part of the essay writing process. These modules are: Animal Farm and Elysium for Year 11, and the 1984 and Metropolis option for Year 12. In order for students to meet the 'reflection' requirements of the assessment task (for both modules) they need to have at least two students complete peer editing proformas for their work.

The proforma they use is here.

In addition to this I was inspired by Ms. Merhebi's session to make use of one of the many strategies she outlined. This particular approach comes from Creative Cultures of Thinking educator Simon Brooks and involves running individual feedback sessions for students. The basic gist is that the student comes along to a pre-arranged appointment, receives feedback from the teacher on the spot as the teacher marks the piece of writing right there, and then walks away with specific goals.

Simon Brooks - Professional Development guru

It sounds fairly straightforward and, really, it is - but I also found it to be quite empowering for the students, and immensely practical for me.

Putting it into Practice

The reason I waited until now to write this blog (rather than writing it directly after the Project Zero conference) was that I wanted to see how this approach went.

There are so many great ideas at professional learning conferences like Project Zero that it's just about impossible to put all of these ideas into practice. This brings us back to Yvette's wisdom and the 'big rocks' approach. Whilst sitting in Rachel Merhebi's workshop I decided to zone in on just this one strategy as something I'd like to try. I picked something and ran with it, rather than tried to note all the things. That might just sound like commonsense to some of you... for me it's a piece of advice that I need to constantly keep in mind so I don't drown in trying to do too much.

Anyway, here's my recount of how this feedback approach went down:

1. I had students undertake a past HSC Creative Writing question in exam conditions during class time. It was something I wanted to provide some meaningful feedback on as I find it difficult to embed creative writing into the set modules for the HSC.
2. I collected the responses and then put made available a booking sheet where up to 5 students could book in to see me in one of six times (a couple of my lunchtimes and non-teaching periods that overlapped with their own study periods). 
3. The students then came to see me in groups of 1-5 and I sat them down independently for ten minutes at a time.
4. Before this point I didn't even read the responses. The key idea that Ms. Merhebi spoke about was that it should be assessed in front of the students so they can see what the process is. The bonus of doing it in this way is that I'm also not spending time marking responses for those senior students who aren't interested, which is very practical when it comes to non-formally assessed tasks. 
5. While sitting with the student I read the piece and talk them through what works and what doesn't, show them the HSC criteria, and give them an idea of what needs to be aimed for the next time they write a creative piece under the same conditions. Something that many of the students struggled with was to sustain their idea across at least three to four pages within the time limit given, so the advice could include a goal in the sense that they should aim to increase the length of their piece by a page each time we undertake a past HSC Discovery Creative question.

 And so ends this freewheeling account of professional learning and feedback ideas.