In John Hattie's book, Visible Learning for Teachers, he talks about the importance of choosing instructional strategies you can leverage; strategies that have a high effect size (.40 or greater) have the greatest impact on student achievement. This is our challenge as teachers--to choose strategies consciously that will help students learn and want to be good learners. Teachers need to be hyper-aware of the impact they have on students and believe in their role as being one of the most "powerful influences in learning (Hattie, 2012)."
When reviewing the top 10 influences on student achievement students setting high expectations for themselves has the highest effect size (1.44) and feedback comes in at #10 (effect size .75.) Keeping this in mind when it comes to the 5C's is crucial. Starting as young as kindergarten we should be teaching students about collaboration, communication, critical thinking, creativity, and citizenship. These are concepts not to be left to the upper grades or the middle or high schools alone. We need to teach our students to set high standards of excellence for themselves in these areas and give them feedback about where they are on their journey.
When reviewing the top 10 influences on student achievement students setting high expectations for themselves has the highest effect size (1.44) and feedback comes in at #10 (effect size .75.) Keeping this in mind when it comes to the 5C's is crucial. Starting as young as kindergarten we should be teaching students about collaboration, communication, critical thinking, creativity, and citizenship. These are concepts not to be left to the upper grades or the middle or high schools alone. We need to teach our students to set high standards of excellence for themselves in these areas and give them feedback about where they are on their journey.
We need to be diligent in choosing when and what types of feedback to give and we need to help students learn how to give appropriate feedback to their peers. For the younger students this can come in the form of an emoji, or a simple scale. Students should begin to look for this throughout the lesson or project, not only at the end. Older students benefit from rubrics and many school districts are growing more skilled at teaching and implementing rubrics on the 5C's.
As we go down this journey learning how to give timely, meaningful, appropriate feedback, consider these seven takeaways:
Everyone benefits from feedback. Whether you're the youngest student or the most successful person in the world, we can all strive to do better.