"Descriptive feedback" refers to providing specific information or suggestions about someone's work or performance in order to help them understand their strengths and areas for improvement.
Full definition
When students are behaving responsibly, the teacher provides them with attention and specific
descriptive feedback on their behavior.
Proven, powerful practices like standards - based formative assessment coupled
with descriptive feedback of learning move all students forward in their learning journey.
Global perceived effect scores were higher for the intervention group and 29 of 32 words
of descriptive feedback included positive words regarding foam rolling.
The teacher and teacher - librarian are actively involved to coach, and to provide formative assessment and
descriptive feedback for learning.
One of the key components of engaging students in the assessment of their own learning is providing them with
descriptive feedback as they learn.
They are vigilant about noticing when students «do right,» and they provide
positive descriptive feedback so students can successfully recall or replicate the skill, knowledge, or behaviors in question.
In fact, research
shows descriptive feedback to be the most significant instructional strategy to move students forward in their learning.
On - going assessment is woven into the design of the inquiry study providing
timely descriptive feedback and utilizes a range of methods, including peer and self evaluation.
Then, frequent self - assessments provide students (and teachers) with continual access to
descriptive feedback in amounts they can manage effectively without being overwhelmed.
However, when students are provided
with descriptive feedback, in a formative assessment classroom, they have a clearer idea of what they can do to increase their learning.
Effective,
descriptive feedback helps students answer these questions by giving them «a clear picture of how their performance looks, how others see it, what specific characteristics or qualities stand out, get in the way, or make the performance work well» (Stiggins, 2014, p. 65).
Austin's Butterfly: Building Excellence in Student Work - Models, Critique, and
Descriptive Feedback from Expeditionary Learning on Vimeo.
Certain students are less likely to pay attention to
descriptive feedback if it is accompanied by a formal judgment, like a grade or an evaluative comment.
«They will submit their work, I give them really
detailed descriptive feedback I tell them what they did well and what they need to improve,» Narizhanaya said.
But it's essential to provide as
much descriptive feedback as possible, says Wiggins, because «the research shows that less teaching plus more feedback is the key to achieving greater learning.»
Specific,
descriptive feedback linked to the targets of instruction and arising from the assessment items or rubrics communicates to students in ways that enable them to immediately take action, thereby promoting further learning.
or «You didn't put enough effort into this» — and
increase descriptive feedback, such as «You maintained eye contact with your audience throughout your whole presentation» or «Your problem - solving strategy for dividing all the people into equal groups worked well right up to the end, but you need to figure out what to do with the remaining people.»
CHAPTER 1: Learning Targets CHAPTER 2: Checking for Understanding CHAPTER 3: Using Data with Students CHAPTER 4: Models, Critique, and
Descriptive Feedback CHAPTER 5: Student - Led Conferences CHAPTER 6: Celebrations of Learning CHAPTER 7: Passage Presentations with Portfolios CHAPTER 8: Standards - Based Grading
In this video, 11th grade English Language Arts teacher Susan McCray from Casco Bay High School in Portland, ME, supports all students in reaching writing standards
through descriptive feedback.
Place them on high performing teams to improve their skills and confidence, providing them with a clear vision and strategy for the team,
descriptive feedback on individual and team performance, and an environment with strong purpose and morale.
Because turning observations about student reasoning into calculated instructional adjustments is often a difficult task, the Center for Educational Testing and Evaluation has made available a number of resources designed to aid teachers in providing immediate,
descriptive feedback for redirecting student learning.
But such comments — in which teachers offer advice, praise, criticism, or evaluation — don't provide the kind
of descriptive feedback that can help students improve their performance, writes Grant Wiggins in this article.
Specific to the primary purpose of formative assessment is the opportunity for teachers to
provide descriptive feedback to students.Rather than providing students with a judgment that identifies an overall grade, score, or level (i.e. summative assessment), teachers focus on providing specific, descriptive information to students on how to keep learning and growing toward proficiency.
Thanks for your honest and
descriptive feedback!
We will follow up with you and require that your give
us descriptive feedback on your date (s).
Assessment expert Dylan Wiliam says that student thinking is the primary goal for
descriptive feedback.
The post-test results showed that students who received comments — that is,
descriptive feedback — reached the highest levels of achievement, one standard deviation higher than the others.
Descriptive feedback is essential for students to understand how they can respond to Sadler's three questions; it is also one of the key components that lead to significant gains in student achievement (Black & Wiliam, 1998).
A key ingredient of formative assessment is
descriptive feedback that identifies the student's strengths and suggests what he or she needs to do to improve.
On the other hand, we can embed into instruction another type of assessment for learning (e.g., teacher and student observation, questioning,
descriptive feedback, student self - assessment, peer assessment).
If students are having trouble formulating hypotheses, they can refer to that portion of the scoring guide as they differentiate between strong and weak examples of hypotheses, practice drafting hypotheses, give one
another descriptive feedback on their drafts, and assess their own drafts» strengths and weaknesses.
When students are in a formative assessment environment and are used to regular, effective and
descriptive feedback, they come to an understanding of themselves as learners.