And, that was better than nothing, but if you got the problem wrong, it didn't really help you much with knowing what you did wrong or how to do it better in the future. It wasn't really feedback.
Since feedback is valuable, we should define it. Like a lot of educational terms, it sort of depends on who you ask. Let's look at a few.
- "Feedback is a game plan for getting better.” - Todd Zakrajsek, book The New Science of Learning,
- "Feedback answers the questions Where am I going? How am I going? What do I do next?" - John Hattie and Helen Timperley, article “The Power of Feedback,” in the Review of Educational Research
- "Feedback and adjustment means additional tries increase accuracy.” - Kevin Washburn, Uprise
There are other definitions, but they all have one thing in common: Feedback isn't just telling you what you did wrong. It's tell you how to improve.
Feedback is cyclical and builds into a whole that is greater than the sum its parts. Think about feedback from a microphone and speaker that are improperly positioned. Sound coming out of a speaker enters the microphone, comes out of a speaker combined with additional sounds, and goes back into the microphone again. That combination produces the awful sound we have all heard in a conference, concert, or church service. In education, we should get a more pleasant result, but the effect is still a combination of input and output building on each other for a different result.
Think about non-academic forms of learning - sports, weightlifting, doing chores, trade jobs, etc. A basketball coach explicitly teaches his players how to properly shoot a free throw, assesses their performance while they practice it multiple times, and provides feedback for improvement. Personal trainers show their client proper squat form or how to execute an effective hammer curl and then stand by and provide feedback while they do it. An apprentice mechanic is carefully taught and monitored by a mentor who provides feedback along the way, so he doesn't destroy someone's car. Students of cosmetology are first taught principles and then practice on wigs with detailed feedback before being allowed to apply a pair of scissors to the hair of a human client; and even then, they are closely watched by an instructor and provided with feedback throughout the process.
Teachers, this means "grading" homework. I don't mean it has to actually have a score in the gradebook, but it means they can't just get credit for doing it. You may not be able to do that with every problem, so you might need to select a couple of critical ones from each assignment. It might mean providing the key and allowing them to check it themselves or going over it in a full class. It will mean doing more than putting a line through a wrong answer on a quiz. That may look different for you than it does for me, but it has to be more than "this is wrong;" it must include a way to be right in the future.
I can hear you saying, "But that takes a lot of time." Yes, it does. And I know the pressures of trying to fit everything in by the end of the year. But the heart of teaching is student learning and improvement, so it is worth eliminating something else to fit in proper feedback. After all, it doesn't matter how much of the curriculum you "cover" if they aren't getting what you are covering. We all have something we could probably leave out if we have to. Effective feedback is worth making that decision for.
If you want to know more about doing feedback well, this website has some good advice.
You may not be a school teacher, but if you are teaching anyone anything, take the time to give feedback to show them how to improve.
