Feedback Forward Basics: Fast and Detailed Feedback

How does Fast Feedback Fit into the Feedback Cycle?

What is the Feedback Cycle?

Feedback is more than the information teachers give students about their work, skills, knowledge, and learning. Feedback needs to be an ongoing conversation: a feedback cycle.

The feedback cycle helps students understand where they are going, where they are, and where they need to go, so they can take responsive action. 

Students should ask and answer three questions as they work towards a learning or skill goal: 

1. Where am I going?
2. Where am I now?
3. Where to next? (and, how will I get there?)

When we help students engage in the feedback process and ask these questions, we enable them to think critically, take initiative, and work effectively with more independence over time. 

Including the feedback cycle in the learning process increases students’ metacognitive awareness of what they need to learn, the progress they are making, and the steps they need to take to improve. 

How does Fast Feedback fit into the Feedback Cycle?

Because you can give feedback quickly to an entire class, Fast Feedback makes it easier to help students understand “where they are now.” With every feedback session, you elicit evidence of learning or skill growth. Once you have given feedback at least five times, you will see data insights that help you interpret that evidence and plan responsive action. These insights form the basis for conversations, plans, or interventions that answer “Where to next?” as well as “How will I get there?”

What does this look like in a classroom? 

Check out the two example scenarios below. The first is a short explanation of a teacher using Fast Feedback to improve students’ preparation for class. The second is a more thorough and detailed study of a teacher using Fast Feedback to improve students’ engagement, particularly during self-directed learning activities.

Scenario 1: Fast Feedback for Preparation

Answering Where am I going? 
Mr. McCabe wants to give feedback that will improve students’ preparation for his class each day. He establishes three simple criteria for full preparation and shares them with the class: home learning completed, class novel brought to class, and on-time arrival to class. 

Answering Where am I now? 
He gives Fast Feedback on preparation to each student daily, circulating around the room while students complete their warm-up. Students who are too late to class to complete the warm-up, without a pass, automatically receive a “not yet” score for preparation.

After three weeks of eliciting evidence of preparation, he conducts mini check-ins with students as they work on the first drafts of an in-class essay he has assigned. During the conferences, he compares student feedback and student trends on the data insights page with students’ scores on formative assessments. He asks the student what they think about their level of preparation and how it might be affecting their success in class. He also asks students to reflect on any obstacles. He works with students to interpret the evidence.

Answering Where to next? 
Together, they collaborate on steps, routines, or strategies the student could employ to come to class prepared. Mr. McCabe also collaborates with the student to trouble-shoot any obstacles for preparation, such as difficulty completing home learning, loss of books or supplies, etc. After these conferences, any student with an average of “not yet” or “almost” has a plan to take responsive action and move forward with the feedback.

Scenario 2: Fast Feedback for Engagement

Answering Where am I going? 

• Mrs. Ferrero wants to increase her students’ engagement during different class activities, so they can build the skills they need for self-directed learning. 
• She decides to give feedback on each student’s engagement twice during every class period: once when students are working collaboratively in groups and again when students are working independently. 
• First, she leads a short discussion with students about what engagement looks like during each of these activities. Through this discussion, they build a short list of expectations and compare them with an engagement framework. In doing so, they have established their goals and success criteria.

Answering Where am I now?

• For two weeks, she provides Fast Feedback during every class period, once when students work in groups and then again during independent work. This results in five sessions of feedback for each category. She has elicited evidence of their engagement.
• During the next two class periods, she calls students up for mini-conferences to check in and discuss the feedback on their engagement during each type of class activity. Before she starts the conferences, she asks students to briefly reflect on their own perception of their engagement: How am I doing? She projects the engagement framework they developed and reminds them of the success criteria they built together. She asks them to do a five minute quick write to share during their conference. 
• During each conference, she navigates to the Insights tab, uses the drop down to select one class and one student at a time, then shares that view with each student. She explains how the data insights reflect the feedback she has given, helping the student understand how that feedback connects to the success criteria they established as a class. Together, they interpret the evidence in a dialogue that leaves space for the student to ask questions, clarify expectations, and share their own perspective. 

Answering Where to next?

• At the end of each conference, the teacher works with the student to set one or two engagement goals based on the engagement frameworks and the feedback the student has received. She also establishes what kind of support the student might need to achieve this goal, whether that is more frequent check-ins, work with a guidance counselor, or sharing data insights with parents. She explains that she will continue to give feedback on engagement (eliciting evidence for them to interpret). The conference and goal-setting have helped the student, and possibly her as the teacher, take responsive action.

Learn more about this feedback process: Hattie and Timperley (2007).