Decades of research confirm the large impact of successful feedback interventions, (Hattie & Timberley, 2007), however in Mote’s research we have found that many teachers struggle with determining whether their feedback is making a difference.
For some teachers, this leads to a gradual loss of motivation to give feedback, especially in combination with stretching teaching schedules and growing expectations for other administrative tasks.
So, in a recent study, we interviewed teachers who have developed sustainable and successful feedback practices, incorporating Mote. We found a common theme - using Mote to give feedback is just part of the solution. Many of these successful educators have developed supporting practices to help ‘close the loop’ with students, ensuring that feedback has been understood and that students know how to move forward.
The power of these practices is that they can achieve the 'triple whammy' of supporting student attainment, building common understanding and connection between teacher and student, and rewarding teachers with a strong sense of immediate impact.
Which of these are you going to try this semester?
Laura Holmgren is a High School English teacher and former K-12 Director of Educational Technology at Polytechnic school in Southern California. Laura uses Mote extensively, alongside video feedback and other tools, to give detailed and personalized feedback to her students on their writing assignments.
To ensure students have internalized and addressed her feedback before they start work on their next assignment, Laura asks students to summarize the oral feedback that she has given to them using Mote in bullet points on a sticky note, which they attach to the rubric she uses on assignments. This helps students to build the practice of reflection, and connects the feedback to the learning journey.
"Teachers can provide high-quality feedback, but if students don't take an active role in tracking their own progress, reflecting on their skill development, and setting their own goals, we aren't making the learning process stick as effectively as we could." Laura Holmgren, Polytechnic School
Gavin Matthews is an English teacher at Taipei European School, Taiwan, where his students include many learning English as a second language. Gavin sees feedback as an essential component of his teaching, and he has assembled a comprehensive set of digital tools to help him to deliver high quality feedback on every assignment. He uses Mote in particular to give substantive, personalized feedback, especially as summative comments that accompany assignment grades.
Gavin’s approach to driving student engagement with his feedback is to create a Reflection Assignment in Google Classroom, where students summarize in their own words the feedback that they have received, and then describe how they plan to adjust their approach in their next assignment.
Gavin sees the benefit of this Reflection exercise in the improvements of his students’ work, as well as valuing the opportunity to hear from students whether they have internalized their work.
I tell my students “I don't want you to transcribe it, I want you to paraphrase the feedback, and then explain what you want to try and do better next time, based on what I've just said in your feedback. Gavin Matthews
If you’re already a Mote user, perhaps you’ve tried the ‘Loops’ feature, that is integrated within Google Classroom and Instructure Canvas. This allows students to indicate if they have understood the feedback that they have received, or if they may need help.
In either case, students are prompted to give a quick text comment as well, to describe how they plan to move forward, or to explain where they need help. Teachers receive a daily notification of the ‘Loops’ responses and comments that their students have left, so that they can follow up as needed.
“I like the Mote Loops feature, and students like it as well.”, says Daniel Lawrence, a Politics and Philosophy teacher at City & Islington College in London, UK. Daniel surveyed some of his students to gauge their preferences for voice vs written feedback, and on the Loops feature. The results were encouraging- 17 of the 24 surveyed students agreed that ‘“I like the option of being able to click on "I understand" or "I don't understand"’ . The majority also confirmed a preference for voice feedback over written feedback - you can see the results of Daniel’s survey in the chart below.
Daniel also values the alerts that he receives from Mote when students use Loops to indicate that they need help.
“I like how when a student hits the “I don't understand” button I'm alerted in an email, because if they just leave a Google Classroom private comment there’s no way to get an alert.”
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