THE FEEDBACK GAP

THE FEEDBACK GAP

We have many gaps to narrow in education and this crisis has exposed another one.  Our current situation is exposing a feedback gap. Many schools are requiring that students receive detailed feedback about process as they switch to a pass/fail or satisfactory/unsatisfactory reporting system. The pushback some are receiving for this is not in the ideology in using these types of reporting, it is because of the lack of experience in

providing detailed feedback on the process. As Rick Wormeli says, “Students can learn without grades, they can’t learn without feedback. The easy way is to assign, a task, check for accuracy, input grades, give a quiz, input grade, give a test, input grade, repeat. John Hattie assigns a .78 effect size to feedback in his Visible Learning Targets research. That equates to almost 2 years of growth in 1 year's time!  So, as we work to narrow the many gaps we have in education, I think our current situation creates the perfect learning opportunity to improve our feedback to students. Most importantly, when we return, we must take this back with us into our classrooms.  Narrowing the feedback gap will undoubtedly assist in narrowing learning gaps!

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