"Unhelpful feedback is easy to give — it happens all the time." It's almost as if you've been observing my past classrooms! I'm grateful for my paradigm shift (which you are aiding) to bake formative feedback into the crust of the course.
Trust me, Cody, I'm much more looking in the mirror when I make comments like that than I am looking at anybody else! Sometimes I look back on the way I used to give feedback and I'm just mortified. Still a work in progress on this.
I agree with the intent and philosophy of everything you write in this post but again I have to challenge your word choices. You define "feedback" as "EVALUATIVE information about the outcome of an event or action that is given back to the source of that event or action." I'm going to post this definition on the Standards-Based Learning and Grading Facebook group and see what members think. I think you are wrong to call it evaluative information because feedback should be descriptive, not evaluative, and almost everything you write and quote after the definition is about description, not evaluation. I also have difficulty with your third pillar wording but I'll wait until your next post to comment on that except to say that "marks" are the symbols (letters or numbers) we use to evaluate individual pieces of student summative assessment evidence.
I'm actually just using the Merriam-Webster dictionary definition: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/feedback : "the transmission of evaluative or corrective information about an action, event, or process to the original or controlling source"
I feel that in all of your comments thus far we are talking past each other because we disagree on definitions. What's your definition of "evaluative" and of "descriptive"?
I hope this helps. Evaluative = judgment; Descriptive = observing, guiding. Summative assessment is evaluative. Formative assessment - adjusting while teaching/learning is going on, emphasis on feedback, not scores which are evaluative (a point you make!.)
Hi Ken, I'm curious if you're coming from a K-12 SBG background? We have a lot in common, but not total overlap, with the K-12 SBG/SBL world. That may account for some of the definitional differences that you're concerned about, especially with the 3rd pillar.
I am coming from a K-12 background but I don't see why or how that would make a difference. Feedback should be descriptive, not evaluative K-16 and I certainly got marks as symbols and grades as summary symbols in my undergraduate and graduate studies (a long time ago!).
"Unhelpful feedback is easy to give — it happens all the time." It's almost as if you've been observing my past classrooms! I'm grateful for my paradigm shift (which you are aiding) to bake formative feedback into the crust of the course.
Trust me, Cody, I'm much more looking in the mirror when I make comments like that than I am looking at anybody else! Sometimes I look back on the way I used to give feedback and I'm just mortified. Still a work in progress on this.
I agree with the intent and philosophy of everything you write in this post but again I have to challenge your word choices. You define "feedback" as "EVALUATIVE information about the outcome of an event or action that is given back to the source of that event or action." I'm going to post this definition on the Standards-Based Learning and Grading Facebook group and see what members think. I think you are wrong to call it evaluative information because feedback should be descriptive, not evaluative, and almost everything you write and quote after the definition is about description, not evaluation. I also have difficulty with your third pillar wording but I'll wait until your next post to comment on that except to say that "marks" are the symbols (letters or numbers) we use to evaluate individual pieces of student summative assessment evidence.
I'm actually just using the Merriam-Webster dictionary definition: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/feedback : "the transmission of evaluative or corrective information about an action, event, or process to the original or controlling source"
I feel that in all of your comments thus far we are talking past each other because we disagree on definitions. What's your definition of "evaluative" and of "descriptive"?
I hope this helps. Evaluative = judgment; Descriptive = observing, guiding. Summative assessment is evaluative. Formative assessment - adjusting while teaching/learning is going on, emphasis on feedback, not scores which are evaluative (a point you make!.)
Hi Ken, I'm curious if you're coming from a K-12 SBG background? We have a lot in common, but not total overlap, with the K-12 SBG/SBL world. That may account for some of the definitional differences that you're concerned about, especially with the 3rd pillar.
I am coming from a K-12 background but I don't see why or how that would make a difference. Feedback should be descriptive, not evaluative K-16 and I certainly got marks as symbols and grades as summary symbols in my undergraduate and graduate studies (a long time ago!).