Age and Ability to Process Positive Feedback

Arbel et al. (2018) explored the correlation between age and response to feedback in students age 8 to 14 years old. The researchers began with the belief that feedback processing is an executive functioning skill that develops with age. They aimed to discover how feedback processing affects learning performance for students of different ages. Participants were presented with a series of unfamiliar stimuli and were asked to learn whether the stimuli required a response or not based on feedback received. The researchers used electroencephalogram (EEG) data to see the brain’s response to positive and negative feedback. Results revealed that for negative feedback, there was not difference on speed or accuracy of responses for different age groups. With positive feedback, an increase in age was related to higher learning as exhibited by faster processing and correct responses. These results imply that older students with higher executive functioning (developed with age) are better at learning from positive feedback. (Arbel et al., 2018)

In my spring semester research, I will examine how 9 year old students learn from feedback and self-reflection. This study suggests that for younger participants, the students may benefit from learning how to process feedback. The ability to process feedback falls under their executive functioning skills. (Arbel et al., 2018)

If learning from feedback is challenging for my younger participants, how will I encourage them to process positive feedback effectively? Will I see a correlation between a student’s ability to process positive feedback and their academic performance on mathematics assessments?

Reference

Arbel, Y., Mccarty, K. N., Goldman, M., Donchin, E., & Brumback, T. (2018). Developmental changes in the feedback related negativity from 8 to 14 years.International Journal of Psychophysiology,132, 331-337. doi:10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2018.01.004

Peer Revision - Effect on the Reviewer

Philippakos and MacArthur (2016) studied how giving feedback (reviewing peers’ work) affects the quality of the reviewers’ own writing. The researchers focused on the effects of giving rather than receiving feedback. A thorough literature review supported the prediction that students who reviewed peer work would show increased skill revising their own work and produce higher quality future work, in comparison with peers who only received feedback or did not engage in any feedback strategies. (Philippakos & MacArthur, 2016)

The researchers were motivated to explore this topic because of the assumption that while professional authors spend extensive time revising their writing, elementary students spend little time or effort revision their work (beyond basic editing). The researchers hoped that this study would highlight one strategy to increase revision skills for 4th and 5th grade students. Study results revealed that the experience of evaluating peers’ work and explaining feedback to peers correlated with the peer reviewers writing higher quality essays even though they did not receive any feedback on their own writing. (Philippakos & MacArthur, 2016)

Philippakos and MacArthur (2016) highlighted the importance of direct instruction in evaluation criteria. Learning evaluation criteria has a positive effect on both the accuracy of self-assessment and overall performance on future work (Philippakos & MacArthur, 2016). This finding has direct implications for the use of self-assessment rubrics in my research this spring. Study participants will benefit from learning evaluation criteria through direct instruction of how mathematical skills are represented on the rubric. Participants will also benefit from learning self-evaluation skills by practicing how to self-score. In my study, I may want to consider how participants who are not working with a teacher during feedback could benefit benefit from peer feedback. If I incorporate this feedback component into my study, I will ensure that students are engaged in valuable peer review by giving specific directions how how students are expected to explain their feedback to their peers.

Reference

Philippakos, Z. A., & MacArthur, C. A. (2016). The Effects of Giving Feedback on the Persuasive Writing of Fourth- and Fifth-Grade Students.Reading Research Quarterly,51(4), 419-433. doi:10.1002/rrq.149

Feedback with Metacognitive Strategies

Sisquiarco, Rojas, and Abad (2018) found that feedback, which included recommendations for cognitive and metacognitive strategies, had a positive impact on the oral presentations and confidence of sixth grade students in Medellin, Colombia. Data analysis shows that the strategies-based feedback correlated with a significant increase in students’ abilities to both self-evaluate and self-monitor their performance. This analysis illustrates that strategies-based feedback helped students to identify the progress they made, and to notice effective strategies that they implemented to achieve this progress. By including both cognitive and metacognitive strategies as integral parts of the feedback, the researchers provided the sixth grade students with steps and actions they could follow as their worked toward their goals. (Sisquiarco, Rojas, & Abad, 2018)

This action based research shares several elements with my study plan for my action based research this winter. The researchers included two self-assessment rubrics as part of their methodology. The researchers also included an instrument (interview) to measure student’s perceptions of their progress with applying their strategies and improving their oral performance. My study will also include two self-assessment rubrics (addressing mathematical skills and students’ abilities to share and defend mathematical thinking) and two instruments (short response surveys) to measure individual student’s perceptions of their growth. (Sisquiarco, Rojas, & Abad, 2018)

I had not considered including strategies-based feedback in addition to the mathematics curriculum rubric until I reviewed this article. Two metacognitive strategies that I may want to borrow from this study are: “I can assess my strengths and weaknesses after …” [solving mathematical problems on a unit assessment] and “I can make a plan for …” [solving multi-step mathematical problems]. This additional piece of feedback and reflection may help students realize that two steps toward reaching their goals are developing their metacognitive skills by making a plan to solve challenging problems, and understanding how well they are able to self-evaluate. (Sisquiarco, Rojas, & Abad, 2018)

Reference

Sisquiarco, A., Rojas, S. S., & Abad, J. V. (2018). Influence of Strategies-Based Feedback in Students’ Oral Performance.HOW,25(1), 93-113. doi:10.19183/how.25.1.402

Explicit Instruction of Metacognitive Skills

In “The Boss of My Brain”, Wilson and Conyers (2014) explore how explicit instruction of metacognitive skills affects students’ ownership of their learning. The authors state that students with metacognitive strategies (students with the ability to monitor their own thinking and learning), ask several questions:

“What are my learning goals?
How am I going to learn this?
How will I double-check that I have it right?
How does this new content fit in with what I already know?
How well do I know this?
Can I apply this new knowledge or skill in other subject areas or situations?” (Wilson & Conyers, 2014)

These key questions help students as they learn new content or develop deeper understanding of any content.

Wilson and Conyers (2014) suggest that two reasons many schools do not teach metacognitive strategies is because the schools are focused on memorizing facts for multiple choice standardized tests, and because teachers feel like they don’t have any time to incorporate this instruction into an already full schedule. However, the authors predict that with the deeper levels of thinking required by the Common Core State Standards, researchers and educators may see an increase in metacognitive skill development throughout new curricula. The article provides suggestions for explicit instruction of metacognitive skills across age groups. For example, while primary school learners may benefit from a lesson where they “plan, do, and redo”, middle school learners may learn best from a lesson where they discover how to recognize and manage their stress. (Wilson & Conyers, 2014)

Metacognitive skill development is critical to the self-evaluation component of my research study. Wilson and Conyers (2014) suggest that lessons about the neuroplasticity of the brain and students’ abilities to change their brain as they learn new information and skills are key to metacognitive skill development. Students must believe that they can change their brain and adjust their thinking as they work to meet their goals (Wilson & Conyers, 2014). During my research study, I may want to incorporate lessons on neuroplasticity to help increase students motivation. I may also want to explicitly teach students in my study how self-evaluation and metacognitive skills can help them become innovators and better problem solvers, critical 21st century skills that will will be applicable to all future learning and careers.

Reference

Wilson, D., & Conyers, M. (2014, October). The boss of my brain.Educational Leadership,72(2). Retrieved November 6, 2018, from http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/oct14/vol72/num02/%C2%A3The-Boss-of-My-Brain%C2%A3.aspx

Increasing Learning Through Self-Assessment

In “Putting Students in Charge of their Own Learning”, Zubrzycki (2015) reports on schools where self-assessment is part of students’ daily learning. The author defines self-assessment as a process in which students judge their progress towards a learning goal and identify their next steps towards the goal. Zubrzycki finds that students need to learn to ask three key questions: “Where am I going? Where am I now? And where to next?”. Zubrzycki argues that effective self-assessment includes several key components: teachers mush translate state standards into student friendly goal statements, students must receive explicit instruction on how to self-assess their work using a rubric or other assessment system, and self-assessment must be followed up with a chance for students to revise their work. Zubrycki implies that the accuracy of self-assessment may be less important than the process of reflection and revision for student learning. (Zubrycki, 2015)

This article directly relates to my research because the primary question I am asking is: How does self-reflection affect student engagement and motivation for future learning? This article supports the argument that self-reflection increases motivation for future learning. Zubrycki (2015) explains that self-assessment helps students take more ownership of their learning by understanding what goal they are working towards, what their current performance is, and what steps they need to take to achieve the goal. In this article, student learning goals are all based on state content standards versus being invented by the learners themselves. In my research, I will also be using grade level standards as learning goals. I wonder how goals created by students (as opposed to by teachers interpreting state content standards) may affect student motivation for future learning?

Key components from the article that I would like to incorporate in my study are ensuring that goal statements are student friendly, providing direct instruction on how to use scoring rubrics and how to completely answer the short response reflection activities, and providing students with an opportunity to revise their work or continue their learning directly after self-assessments.

Reference

Zubrycki, J. (2015, November 11). Putting students in charge of their own learning. Education Week, 35(12). Retrieved November 6, 2018, from https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2015/11/11/students-self-assess-their-way-to-learning.html

Self-evaluation as a Feedback Tool to Increase Students' Motivation

Grünke, Sperling, and Burke (2017) explored the effects of a multi-faceted intervention program with 5^th grade students. The intervention involved a performance feedback system which included explicit timing, self-scoring, positive feedback, displaying high scores, and using a chart to illustrate the learning process.  Students were identified for this study based on low performance (compared to peers) on a grade level writing assessment. The authors predicted that implementation of this intervention program would increase the length and quality of the students’ creative writing.

Study results imply that the performance feedback system was successful in helping students to increase their motivation for writing during a grade level writing assignment. Data analysis did not identify which component of the intervention had the greatest effect on the positive outcomes, however, the combined effect did increase both the length and quality of students’ writing. Of particular note for my research is that the participants’ self-scoring was compared for accuracy with the test administrator’s scoring and the level of agreement equaled at least 90%. This finding demonstrates that 5^th grade students are able to accurately self-score their writing with appropriate measurement tools. (Grünke, Sperling & Burke, 2017)

In my research project, I am exploring how self-refection and self-evaluation can increase students’ motivation for future learning. The study suggests that self-evaluation does have a positive correlation with motivation when combined with other intervention components. Unfortunately, Grünke, Sperling and Burke (2017) found that the positive effects did not last over time. Follow up assessments when the intervention system was no longer implemented showed a significant drop in performance. This finding encourages me to study and explore self-regulation/self-evaluations systems that can be easily replicated and repeated after my study is completed so that the positive effects are maintained.

Reference

Grünke, M., Sperling, M., & Burke, M. D. (2017). The impact of explicit timing, immediate feedback, and positive reinforcement on the writing outcomes of academically and behaviorally struggling fifth-grade students. Insights into Learning Disabilities, 14(2), 135-153.

Peer Feedback: Valuing Student Experts

Sackstein (2017) argues that peer feedback enhances learning for both the student providing feedback and the student receiving feedback (p. 4). He argues that if all students were empowered to give meaningful feedback to each other, less students would be sitting and waiting for teacher direction and more students would be taking responsibility for their own learning and demonstrating self-advocacy (Sackstein, 2017, pp. 11-13). Over years of teaching experience Sackstein (2017) discovered that “student-to-student feedback is often received more positively than teacher-to-student feedback” (pp. 3-4). Sackstein (2017) encourages teachers to shift their mentality from the teacher as the expert to a room full of experts of different things, with students as the experts, facilitators and leaders (p. 14). Sackstein (2017) warns that without clear expectations and teacher follow-through, peer feedback may breakdown (p. 14). However, with these teacher supports, student may be able to reach higher levels of learning and mastery.

In my fourth grade classroom, students work with partners or triads in all subjects. Yesterday, I listened in on a peer conference at the end of our writing lesson. Students were directed to share their “quick write” (using a newly learned pre-writing technique) with their writing partner. The partner was expected to listen by facing their partner and then respond with “I like …”. The pair of students I observed included one student who is writing at expected fourth grade level and one student with barely legible handwriting. When the second partner could not read his own handwriting, the student listener stepped right in. “I can tell you were writing about something important to you,” he began, “because you are excited about reading it to me and you wrote a lot more words than I’ve seen you write before”. This was by far a better response (and more positive) than I could have generated in that moment. This interaction is an excellent example of how peer feedback can be used to help empower both students with their learning.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t always go as smoothly as yesterday. Last week, students worked in triads to brainstorm ideas and creatively design our class mission statement. Student triads were given a large piece of paper and markers to show their thinking. After all groups put their ideas to paper, I encouraged students to move around the room and provide other peer groups with feedback on sticky notes. While the feedback was valuable from my perspective, most students complained that the sticky notes they received were “mean”. I looked at the feedback and didn’t agree. Notes like “add more color” and “you used the same word three times” provided valuable feedback from my perspective. I realized that I hadn’t prepared my students to receive critical feedback and their expectations were that they had already achieved perfection.

After exploring Stackstein’s suggestions and reflecting on peer feedback in my classroom over the last week, I am inspired to allow students more opportunities to provide their peers with feedback. I am reminded that clear expectations and teacher follow-through are necessary components to ensure that this process is valuable for all learners. I wonder how I can incorporate peer feedback into my spring feedback and motivation study. I will consider what expectations I will need to explicitly teach my students to ensure that this peer feedback is most valuable for all learners and has the greatest positive effect on students' motivation for future learning.

Reference

Sackstein, S. (2017). Peer feedback in the classroom: Empowering students to be the experts. Alexandria, VA, USA: ASCD.