General comments such as "Great Job" are nice words that may make students feel good, but specific feedback can help students advance their learning. Imagine that you are just learning to drive. After driving all over town, the instructor or your parent says, "That was pretty good, but there are some things you still need to work on," and walks away. It's important to know what exactly was good and what needs work! Students need the guidance of teachers to provide information about what is going well, and what next steps to take to move along. This guidance can be provided in the form of specific feedback. Feedback can be provided informally while walking around the room as students work or formally during a student/teacher conference. Either way, your students will likely benefit from specific feedback.
Like other effective instructional practices, providing specific feedback may take a bit of practice. You can focus on one subject area to start. Then you can add other subject areas as specific feedback becomes a habit. Here are examples of specific feedback in 5 subject areas to get you started:
1. Writing
You remembered to indent each paragraph. The next step is to use transition phrases such as "The following day..." when you begin a new paragraph.
2. Math
You chose the right operation to begin that story problem and solved it correctly. It's a 2 part story problem so let's keep reading to decide what to do next.
3. Science
Your graph is an accurate display of your results. What conclusions can you draw based on this data?
4. Social Studies
You were able to use North, East, South, and West correctly when answering questions about the map. Now you are ready to work with the intermediate directions.
5. Reading
You were able to answer all the factual questions from the passage correctly. Rereading may help you answer those trickier open-ended questions so that your answers are supported by text evidence.
When you provide specific feedback, you recognize small steps toward a goal. Notice the reaction from the student when you give specific feedback. Confidence grows when students know exactly what to do next.
I've been reading a lot about the importance of habits. You too? Read about making math a habit HERE!
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