Teachers work long hours, well beyond the time required to be at school teaching students. Many of us are accustomed to collecting student work and bringing it home with us to provide feedback, commandeering the dining room table on a Sunday afternoon with a trusty red pen in hand, poring over students' papers to correct their spelling and grammar and provide comments on their thoughts and ideas. It may take days before the papers are returned to students, after which they are filed away in students' folders, never to be seen again. In the above scenario, feedback becomes increasingly less relevant for students to improve their work and reach their learning goals.
According to Grant Wiggins (2012), student performance is enhanced when we offer students lots of feedback and opportunities to use that feedback. In his article entitled
Seven Keys to Effective Feedback, Wiggins notes that feedback is most effective when it is
- goal-referenced
- tangible and transparent
- actionable
- user-friendly
- timely
- ongoing
- consistent
It may be time to re-think how we provide students with meaningful feedback now that we have more access to instructional technology tools through Google for Education. With G Suite tools like Google Classroom, teachers can assign digital documents like Google Docs and provide feedback that meets many, if not all of Wiggins' criteria for deeper student learning.
Check out this video tutorial to learn how to leverage Google Classroom to provide students with timely, meaningful feedback. For more information on providing students with effective feedback in Google Classroom, check out Alice Keeler's blog post,
Google Classroom: Invisible Feedback.
References
Wiggins, G. (2012). Seven Keys to Effective Feedback. Educational Leadership, Vol 70 (1), pp. 10-16.
