How does a cycle of feedback influence student ownership of learning?

Seminar Title

How does a cycle of feedback influence student ownership of learning?

Self and Peer Assessment, Student Conferences, Feedback

10th Grade

High School

Language Arts

Humanities

Do you ever hand back assessments with comments and a grade, only to watch students gloss over your comments, look at the grade, and quickly shuffle it into their folder or the garbage? Do you find yourself making the same comments over and over because the same mistakes are repeated assignment after assignment? How do we move students beyond completing assignments for a grade to completing assignments for learning? In an effort to move students from being focused solely on a grade and actually valuing and using the feedback provided on assessments, I shifted the culture of my classroom to include more self, peer, and teacher feedback through peer conferences and student-teacher conferences. I found that when students are given time to reflect on their work, talk through their approach to writing, and redo assessments based on feedback, they are more likely to use the feedback provided. While this session focuses on a high school English classroom, it could also apply to other upper level disciplines where opportunities to learn from and apply feedback are valued.

The essential question I sought to answer for my action research was “how does a cycle of feedback influence student ownership of learning?” After reviewing the literature, I came away with a couple of key concepts. In order to increase student motivation, they needed to have opportunities for autonomy over their learning, which includes choice in time, task, team, and approach to their learning. Students also needed to understand the purpose of the learning assessments; how does the assessment they are being asked to complete fit into the overall purpose of the course? How would this assessment help them in the future? The third key concept for students to increase motivation was the ability to see progress toward mastery; students need to be able to see concrete evidence that they are understanding or not understanding the material and be provided with specific strategies to improve this in the future. It is with these three concepts in mind that I revised and developed new curriculum to include significantly more self and peer assessments, with student teacher conferences on writing assessments After dabbling with self and peer assessments in multiple classes during the first quarter of the school year, I realized that if I were to make a true change in my classroom the process for feedback that students received needed to be more consistent and intentional. During the second quarter, I developed three assessments per standard (fifteen assessments total) for students to complete. For the six writing assessments assigned, students self and peer assessed on a weekly basis. Every other week, they would conference with me on their writing. At the end of the semester, they had the opportunity to choose one argumentative and one creative writing piece to redo based on the feedback provided from all three sources. While I was conferencing with students, the rest of the class would be reading articles or the assigned novel to prep for a new writing assignment or a small group discussion. By having three assessments for each standard, students had the opportunity to take the feedback from a previous assessment and apply it to the next assessment a week later. While there are still aspects of this system that need to be revised or developed, I am happy with the results I am starting to see in my students. By conferencing with them on a biweekly basis, I feel I am able to give them better feedback on their writing, better understand their approach to the assessment, and feel that they are more likely to use the feedback provided. I have already seen some students take it upon themselves to revise their assessments prior to a peer or myself looking at them. I am looking forward to making revisions based on the results of my study, and continuing to implement a similar system and culture of feedback going forward.