Smart Feedback, Pt. 4: Timing, Tone, and Typos are (Almost) Everything
Takeaway:
Using timing, negative vs positive, and accurate feedback makes all the difference in ensuring your students are learning and constructing knowledge appropriately. Misusing these concepts, however, can be harmful to your students, so use them mindfully and well.
Guiding Questions:
How does timing play a role in meaningful feedback?
When is negative feedback more helpful than positive?
Is inaccurate feedback harmful to the student?
How does the classroom climate play a role in a feedback-rich classroom?
Summary:
Now that we have reviewed the four different levels of feedback, understanding how timing works to better benefit the student is a logical next step. The timing of feedback is put into two different categories: immediate and delayed.
Immediate feedback is best when connected with a specific and simple task (FT). When a student is working on something that is not complex, providing immediate feedback allows the student to correct their own understanding or performance before they move in the wrong direction. However, providing immediate feedback about the process of learning (FP) can be quite detrimental.
Delayed feedback best serves the student when working on more complex ideas or tasks. Working through difficult concepts or assignments requires significant processing and thought, so delaying the feedback gives the student more time an opportunity to review their own work and understandings to self-correct. However, delaying feedback for students working on simple tasks or understandings can be detrimental for the learner. While the teacher could have prevented the student from quickly constructing an idea that would lead them in the wrong direction, delaying this communication can cause increases in errors for the student as well as frustration.
To help make these two ideas more concrete, let’s apply them to different scenarios. Jess is a second grade student and is struggling with addition and regrouping. She sees what her classmates are doing and tries to copy their methods without understanding them. Embarrassed, she trudges on hoping to come to the right conclusion. Delayed feedback can cause Jess to have to put a lot of effort into changing her thinking on these concepts and make her feel bad for not getting it right in the beginning. Immediate feedback would prevent Jess from constructing erroneous ideas and help her to move along with her classmates with convidence.
Jamal is an eighth grader and is studying photosynthesis. He is creating a poster that he has to explain to the class on how photosynthesis for plants perfectly compliments cellular respiration in animals. Jamal is asked to balance the chemical equations, but it is not working. Immediate feedback might give Jamal the answer, which would be convenient for the task he is working on. However, delayed feedback would give Jamal the opportunity to think through where the error is, correct it, and build a deeper understanding that will help him in his presentation to the class.
Just as important as timing is the tone of the feedback: negative vs positive. While reading this previous sentence, you likely had a gut reaction on which is better. The truth is, they are both equally useful, if applied appropriately.
Negative feedback is best used on feedback on one’s self (FS). This type of feedback allows someone to better understand their shortcomings or errors in how they are working, while positive feedback would only reinforce what the student already knows: they are succeeding. In fact, no feedback has a better impact on FS that positive feedback. Ideas or notions shared, such as “good girl,“ “great job,” or “you are awesome” are not only not helpful, but can cause a student to disengage because it does not encourage further learning or better knowledge construction. That is why it is important to combine feedback about the student (FS) with feedback about the task (FT).
Feedback about the task (FT) in isolation can be both positive or negative and will have an good impact on the student. Both correction and encouragement are helpful regarding tasks.
Feedback about self-regulation (FR) can be very situational. The helpful effects of negative and positive feedback here will have different outcomes. This can largely depend on each student.
Feedback about a student’s process (FP) can be positive or negative. Positive feedback can help increase engagement while negative feedback and be corrective.
All of these feedbacks are very important, but are rendered meaningless without quality and accuracy. Providing feedback that is inaccurate can cause further challenges and harm to the student’s learning, so knowing what to say and how to say it is immensely important. Low quality, or less meaningful, feedback can have a very low impact on the student, making it nearly without value.
Overall, the climate of the classroom plays a massive role in providing successful feedback. The more open, honest, and vulnerable a teacher is they more these attributes will be seen in the students. This sense of humility and psychological safety produces and environment where students can feel safe to give, receive, and request feedback. Combining this with the skills of understanding the important of timing, negative vs positive, and high quality feedback can mean the different between a well-learned and passionate group of students and those who are not. Feedback is a powerful tool, one that must be used wisely.
Leadership Thoughts:
If timing, tone, and accuracy make such a large impact on our students, how much more so for those who work for and with us? Leaders must be humble and caring enough to give feedback to our staff and teams that allows them to correct errors and encourages them to take appropriate risks and grow. Be mindful in this and make sure that what you say, write, or postulate communicated exactly what you want them to know and understand.