Saturday, January 24, 2015

Feedback Sandwiches and other Unhealthy Fare



Reading the first Faculty Focus article of the new year, “Is Praise Undermining Student Motivation?” caused me to rethink one of my long-held beliefs, the idea that it’s important to start a student comment by pointing out positives, then add the constructive feedback, and end on a positive and encouraging note.  Effective Commenting 101, right?  Well, apparently not.  According to Orlando,
The model is used under the belief that it keeps up the student’s spirits, but in reality it only confuses the message. The student reads only the positive at either end and ignores the real message in the middle that they need to hear in order to improve, or they recognize the dissonance between the conflicting messages and wonder how they really did. “Gee,” they say to themselves, “the beginning and the end tell me this is great, while the middle says that there are all sorts of problems, so which is it?” The feedback sandwich can even reduce respect for the instructor since students will soon learn that no matter what they hand in, the instructor will praise it along a predictable formula, making the feedback meaningless and something to be ignored.
The trick, apparently, is to praise the process rather than the product, the effort rather than the ability that went into the assignment. It’s all about seeing praise not as motivation but as a way to encourage student growth.
What do you think?  Do you use the feedback sandwich model?  How/where/when do you give feedback? What works for you and your students? 

8 comments:

  1. I divide the paper or project or assignment into parts and comment on each part or section appropriately and honestly. One can achieve the same result with a rubric.

    Further, I give an overall grade. Must students understand and like grades. Grades are usually unambiguous and less confusing. An overall grade indicates whether, in spite of pointing out positives and negatives or problems, the assignment is well done or not.

    Safro Kwame

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    1. True, a grade gives a good picture of whether an assignment is well done or not. The problem is that knowing something wasn't well done doesn't help the student learn how to make it better, and even knowing that it was well done doesn't necessarily mean that the student understands what was good about it so that he or she can consciously reproduce the goodness next time, hence the need for comments. But it's interesting to think about dividing an assignment into parts and commenting on each. When you do that, do you also add an ending (summary) comment?

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  2. I also use a rubric for all writing assignments. I'm hoping that the rubric clearly communicates exactly how students did on each section/requirement. In addition to the rubric, I leave comments in the text and I write a longer comment at the end. For the comments in the text I don't feel obligated to say anything positive. However, at the end, I do feel that I should recognize the student's effort. This is easy if the paper is great and only needs a few edits - then I say "Great job! If you want to you can improve your grade by....." But if the paper falls below expectations I find it more difficult to say something that is both positive and honest. I often say something like "This is a good start, but...." or "You have a solid x-section, but the y and z sections are missing or need significant improvement". I hardly ever use the sandwich. I mostly end with a plead to the student to come see me!

    Here is what I find most interesting and confusing: I would assume that the rubric would be the tool that best tells the student how to improve. However, I find that the students are most likely to read the comments at the end of the paper and make all the suggested changes, they are less likely to respond to my comments in the text and least likely to pay attention to the rubric! So I have learned to put most of my effort into the comments and the end - and I aim to be honest but gentle.

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    1. Anna, I think you might have the right idea about making it an open face sandwich--an inviting, positive opening of some sort, on top of the actual substance. (Although actually even a "please come see me" can be a positive statement in the sense of "please come see me and let's talk about how to make this even better next time.")

      I'd be interested in seeing your rubric. I'm not sure mine help the student all that much, even though they help me grade consistently. The problem is that checking "needs attention" on, say, "essay is clearly organized" just tells the student what needs to be fixed, not how to fix it. That, it seems to me, can only be expressed with in-text comments (or at office hours or whatever.)

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  3. I think there is a difference between expressing warm approval or admiration for an individual and giving feedback on submitted work. Expression of approval & admiration, I suggest, are best face-to-face or in other communications not related to feedback on work. I always try to let students know that I want them to be successful and admire their attempts to improve their situations.
    Conversely, feedback must provide the kind of information that allows students to make corrections, or reinforces the desirable elements of a given work. Hence, when reading a written assignment, I tend to make many comments. It is not unusual for me to make upwards of 25 comments on a six-page paper. These can range from simply pointing out where they've got a strong element to pinpointing where they are making unsupported claims. Nor is it uncommon for students to react with surprise when I return their first paper. A tytpical response is, "You grade hard." However, by the end of a semester, most students are very appreciative of the detailed feedback given, and see it as useful information for making improvements. In my eyes, it is much more desirable if a student can articulate what they did well and what needs work. Simply saying that they’ve gotten a good grade does little to help them continue to grow.
    While a rubric can help explain the grade given, grades do little to help the student know where and how to make adjustments. Additionally, while a rubric is designed, in part, to reduce the arbitrariness of grades, the creation of the rubric is itself rather subjective in nature. The determination of the weight given to elements of the rubric are subjective. They are based on what an instructor or departments thinks is important.

    - Bradley LeVan

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  4. Couldn't have said it better myself, Brad--just putting a grade at the end of an assignment does not help students grow unless it's accompanied by the explanation of the positives and negatives that went into it. And friendship, respect, and appreciation of student effort, no matter how much they establish a good relationship in which teaching and learning can take place, do not spark that learning in the absence of specific and clear feedback.

    I'm interested in your mention of the subjectivity of rubrics. I feel that myself, although I just have always rationalized that it's just because I'm not using the right kind of rubric. I'd be interested in seeing some examples of rubrics that people use that they believe are indeed both objective and instructive.

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  5. I did not get the impression that the issue here is whether "just putting a grade at the end of an assignment helps students grow" or whether any of our comments, on student papers or even here in this blog, or rubrics is not subjective. My understanding is that the question at issue is "What works for you and your students" in dealing with "the dissonance between the conflicting messages;" and the suggestion from most of the comments here is "a lot of things and not just one thing." Am I wrong about this (i.e. my reading and understanding of the issue and comments)?

    Safro Kwame

    P. S. Sorry about the typo about "Must" instead of "Most."

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    1. I do not think your understanding of the issue is either right or wrong. I believe the issue Linda put forth was a springboard for an exploration of how we give feedback and the nature of that feedback. Discernment of the later part of the previous sentence is where my greatest interest lays - the nature of feedback. Coming from a systems perspective, feedback is always input that should have an impact on the process, or what student does next. As such, one might suggest that dissonance in feedback is probably not desirable as a general pattern. Students could quite easily become puzzled about what it is to which they need to attend. There are times when students may experience some level of dissonance that is productive. Let me give an example.

      I returned a paper to a student with well over 30 comments. The comments were all made intending to encourage the student to dig deeper, explore other ideas and possibilities, and to connect one set of ideas with another. I also gave the student an “A” for the assignment. This student was quite perplexed with the grade. She wanted to know how the paper could be an “A”. I indicated that she met all the requirements set forth in the rubric to garner the grade. She followed with, “But you’ve made so many comments about what I could do differently or better.” To me, this illustrates a level of dissonance based on the mistaken premise that the grade “A” is synonymous with “perfect” or “no improvement necessary”. After talking a bit longer, she came to understand that learning can be quite different from working for a grade. I asked what she was most interested in – the grade or learning. She was struck by this comment and didn’t know how to answer it.

      I recognize that I have a very real bias here. I think that working for a grade is not as desirable as working toward learning – increasing knowledge and the ability to use that knowledge. If student motivation is to earn a good grade, does this automatically equal wanting to learn? I wish it did, but my experience tells me it frequently doesn’t. Is the feedback more useful when a student can say, “I got an A and did a good job.”? Alternatively, is it more useful when a student can say, “Here is what I learned, and here is what I am going to work on next.”?

      - Bradley LeVan

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