Thanks for this, I've been thinking a lot about practice and feedback loops lately. This comment is about feedback rather than practice -- I'm planning something new this fall that I wonder if anybody has any experience with: connecting learning feedback loops to the content of a (seemingly unrelated) course. I'm teaching an extremely broad general education science class that is full of positive and negative feedback processes (stars maintaining stability against gravity, homeostasis in living organisms, the Earth's carbon cycle, all the feedback mechanisms involved in climate change, etc), and I have hopes that continually emphasizing these systems and reminding the students that the class is also a system might both make the course content more relatable and underline how important feedback is in learning? I'm planning to discuss systems and feedback during the first class, with learning and practice as an example. I've never tried this before and I'm still working on incorporating as many concrete implementation strategies as I can.
This kind of thing falls under the heading of "systems thinking" and if you're looking to introduce a general framework for feedback that can be applied broadly both to science concepts and to the students' on course experience, you might check some of the material that's out there on this subject such as https://thesystemsthinker.com/introduction-to-systems-thinking/
Thanks for the link! I actually just finished reading "Thinking in Systems" (Meadows), but I haven't seen anything about connecting course content and practices in this way. I'll check out that website.
Robert, I'm just now finding your Substack after following your excellent work for many years, and glad I did.
I am a vigorous opponent of most grading reform/alternative grading approaches, but I am excited to dig into your thinking here.
It seems to me that traditional grading is perfectly structured to allow teachers to grade in ways that emphasize deliberate practice. Am I wrong in thinking this article is an attempt to make alternative grading do a comparable job despite falling short in its basic structures?
A great example is effort and completion grades—perfect for holding students accountable for, and giving feedback on, deliberate practice. Under SBG and other alternative approaches, grades for anything other than mastery are typically verboten.
It's a great analogy. However, there's one other element that might be crucial. No music student is expected to progress at exactly the same speed as every other student. I applaud your work and commitment, but I think this is an element that is often neglected in discussions and thinking about assessment. IMHO alternative assessment is crippled if you don't change the restrictions on time to learn which varies from learner to learner. The good news is that in a proficiency-based approach it can be done.
Very timely and useful blogpost. Thank you very much for the simple and actionable ideas!
Thanks for this, I've been thinking a lot about practice and feedback loops lately. This comment is about feedback rather than practice -- I'm planning something new this fall that I wonder if anybody has any experience with: connecting learning feedback loops to the content of a (seemingly unrelated) course. I'm teaching an extremely broad general education science class that is full of positive and negative feedback processes (stars maintaining stability against gravity, homeostasis in living organisms, the Earth's carbon cycle, all the feedback mechanisms involved in climate change, etc), and I have hopes that continually emphasizing these systems and reminding the students that the class is also a system might both make the course content more relatable and underline how important feedback is in learning? I'm planning to discuss systems and feedback during the first class, with learning and practice as an example. I've never tried this before and I'm still working on incorporating as many concrete implementation strategies as I can.
This kind of thing falls under the heading of "systems thinking" and if you're looking to introduce a general framework for feedback that can be applied broadly both to science concepts and to the students' on course experience, you might check some of the material that's out there on this subject such as https://thesystemsthinker.com/introduction-to-systems-thinking/
Thanks for the link! I actually just finished reading "Thinking in Systems" (Meadows), but I haven't seen anything about connecting course content and practices in this way. I'll check out that website.
Robert, I'm just now finding your Substack after following your excellent work for many years, and glad I did.
I am a vigorous opponent of most grading reform/alternative grading approaches, but I am excited to dig into your thinking here.
It seems to me that traditional grading is perfectly structured to allow teachers to grade in ways that emphasize deliberate practice. Am I wrong in thinking this article is an attempt to make alternative grading do a comparable job despite falling short in its basic structures?
A great example is effort and completion grades—perfect for holding students accountable for, and giving feedback on, deliberate practice. Under SBG and other alternative approaches, grades for anything other than mastery are typically verboten.
It's a great analogy. However, there's one other element that might be crucial. No music student is expected to progress at exactly the same speed as every other student. I applaud your work and commitment, but I think this is an element that is often neglected in discussions and thinking about assessment. IMHO alternative assessment is crippled if you don't change the restrictions on time to learn which varies from learner to learner. The good news is that in a proficiency-based approach it can be done.