Teacher Feedback 1:1

My next step is to work with each of the 8 students in my target group individually to unpack what the peer and teacher feedback is and how they can craft their sentences and their paragraphs for coherence in writing. Our discussion will involve the audience awareness and the impact of their writing on the audience.

I am so looking forward to doing this so we can polish the writing to a high standard, using the feedback and forward. We are all excited about crafting students narratives ready for publishing in the children's magazine Toi Toi.

Before sending the narratives off for publishing the group has decided that the best stories will be selected by a panel made of students and other teachers. Also, the selected stories will be read to groups of students before the final decision of which stories will be sent to be published.

Responding to Peer and Teacher feedback

The target students wrote narratives with the prompts provided by the teacher. They planned their stories, drafted the stories, edited and proofread their work, then shared it with assigned peers and the teacher to give and receive feedback and feedforward.

The students wrote their narratives with the audience and purpose in mind.

Students used the rubrics in child speak to provide the feedback. They then, responded to the feedback provided by their peers and me.

During this process the students mentioned to me that they could see the difference between how they first wrote their stories and how while responding to the feedback, they noticed that the stories sounded better than when they first wrote the story. I think the process we are following right now, mentioned above is working and the students are crafting their sentences deliberately and writing better stories.

This is exciting already.

Professional Learning around giving feedback / feedforward in writing

Today at our staff meeting with Mary Wootton around feedback / feedforward in students writing, we discussed:

Strengths of our feedback

• Giving specific feedback about the learning and next steps.
• Timeliness of giving and receiving feedback. Provide a choice for students to ask for feedback at the beginning of their writing or at any time during their writing or at the end.
• Peer feedback is honest yet helpful
• Providing time for students to respond to feedback.

Challenges in giving feedback

• With younger students, unless feedback given is discussed with students, they just read the comments and make minor changes and resolve the feedback comment.
• Time for giving peer feedback and responding to feedback is a challenge. But we must persevere

The quote from John Hattie is very thought provoking.

"The incidence of feedback in the typical classroom is very low, usually seconds at best per day. "

A feedback strategy: from the book "Enriching Feedback in the Primary Classroom" By Shirley Clarke 2003

'It was dismal.'

Reminder prompts

Say why you thought this

Scaffolded prompt

Why was it dismal? Why did you hate being there? It was dismal because........

An example prompt

Choose one of these or write one of your own

It was dismal because I was bored all the time

I found it dismal only having one person to talk to

Providing feedback and feedforward is really important. Conversations with the writer is a good way to give feedback and set goals to improve their writing.

Sharing students' writing and celebrating is our focus now.

Peer Feedback

The students used the rubrics in child speak and the resource "Crafting Sentences" to provide feedback and feedforward to their peers.
As a group, we read one students' piece of writing (with permission) and co-constructed a positive, thoughtful and specific feedback. The feedback was specific to our learning intention of "Crafting Sentences to improve our writing".
The students got an idea of how to provide constructive feedback and feedforward.
It was heartening to see that students chose who they would provide feedback to and receive feedback from. Every student had two other peers who were giving feedback to them.
It took a few days for each student in the group to read two other peers' writing and provide feedback.

Once feedback was received, students had to sit with the peers who gave them feedback and accept or challenge the feedback in a positive way. It was good to hear some students challenging the feedback and the peers who gave feedback justifying their feedback with reference to the written piece.

This was a time consuming process but did have a positive impact on students who learnt to give and receive constructive feedback.

The students then responded to feedback and worked on improving their writing. A positive experience for all.

I am happy we did this because it was powerful for students to give and receive feedback. The students told me that it enabled them to learn from each other.