Thoughts on Julie and Ray Smith’s session at the International Visible Learning Conference in Carlsbad, CA.
Contributed by Kimberly Huesing, Director of Elementary Education, Carlsbad Unified School District
Dr. and Dr. Smith combined to jointly share an intriguing presentation regarding formative assessment. Information regarding the role of feedback in learning, strategies for providing feedback on instruction, and receiving and giving feedback at all levels. We had learned about Dr. Hattie’s research and the importance of effect size of .40, the relevant impact size on providing formative evaluation was .90! The highest effect on learning was when teachers would seek evidence on where students are not doing well. It seems logical to address areas of need, and the crux of the issue is in knowing exactly what needs to be addressed. Thus, effective formative assessment is the necessary component.
The levels of feedback were discussed at the task, process, self-regulation, and self/praise levels. The self and/or praise level is the lowest level of feedback, makes the least impact on learning, and yet is the most widely used form of feedback. While important to give praise, more effective feedback would be to notice a strategy and ask what other strategies could be used, (process level of feedback), or to give a directive on how to implement a specific strategy like text dependent questioning, for example, (self –regulation level of feedback).
The session was well attended. Word must have gotten out that this session was great because we were “Standing Room Only,” we shared materials, and we had active discussion in the room on current process and the potential
to implement comments written with this information in mind on teacher evaluations or lesson summaries.
