Providing effective, productive feedback

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Providing effective, productive feedback

• Vernon Dickson, PhD
• 25 February 2008

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Overview of Presentation

• Harvard Writing Study
• Across the Drafts
• Understanding Roles and Range of Feedback
• Using Feedback Effectively

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Harvard Writing Study

• Four-year study
• Surveys, in-depth interviews, analysis of
  individual essays
• 400 students (¼ of freshman class)
• Gain a better understanding of the role writing
  plays in a college education and to compose as
  complete a portrait as possible of the college
  writing experience.

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Feedback Shaping Students

• It was clear from our study that feedback, more
  than any other form of instruction, shapes the
  way a student learns to write.
• Feedback has the power to convince students that
  they can or cant do the work in a given field,
  and even to push them toward or away from a
  major.

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Academic Belonging / Passion

• We learned from the students in our study that
  feedback, more than any single factor,
  contributed to their sense of academic belonging
  or alienation.
• Study participants spoke passionately about the
  feedback they receivedboth helpful and
  unhelpful.

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Viewing of Across the Drafts

• Please take notes

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Student Responses Revision/Value

• Its given me validation that revision is
  necessary and not just something that someone
  made up. - Tiffanye Threadcraft (AtD)
• It must be tough looking at a very large stack
  of papers, but its the most helpful part of the
  essay process because without a reader, the whole
  process is diminished. Alexandra Hays (AtD)

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Range of Feedback

• Pre-draft (peers, instructor, emails,
  conferences, notes, outlines, proposals,
  groupwork, discussion boards, etc.)
• Between drafts (peers, instructor, emails,
  conferences, notes, presentations, revision
  contracts, groups, etc.)
• Final draft (peers, instructor, notes, comments,
  write-ups, conferences, blogs, presentations,
  portfolios, etc.)
• Other (thinking outside process theory)

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Giving Purposeful Feedback

• Why do we give feedback? (Critique, encourage,
  redirect, defend, teach)
• When do we? (Pre/post-draft, other)
• How do we? (Goal-oriented, vary it)
• What is most effective? (Methods)
• Who does it? (Peer, instructor, other)
• Where do we do it? (Class, office, alone, other)

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Effective Feedback Toolbox

• Creating a feedback toolbox
• Match feedback use to course goals be
  purposeful in feedback
• Try new forms/modes of feedback (presentations,
  blogs, etc.)
• What has(nt) worked for you?
• Ideas/discussion/questions/concerns

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Thank You for Coming

• Always feel free to contact me with questions,
  ideas, or interests
• Vernon Dickson, vdickson_at_fiu.edu
• Good luck in your instruction!