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titleTop Tip 2: only write the assessment outcome: don't give value judgements, don't give hints, don't correct working, don't try and find where or why errors were made

The only exception to this rule, is for example, if the learner makes an error in a complex multistage word problem, the teacher might want to write down the numerical answer (on the learner's page, or on the teacher’s lesson plan page) to save the teacher having to work out the answer to check the learner's correction.

If the assessment outcome is a tick or best learned later or reset: there is no need for feedback in the next lesson.

If the assessment outcome is FOA feedback on attempt or FOB feedback on blank: then we expect the learner to try and self correct or get peer to peer help or initiate a feedback-dialogue with the teacher, within the rules of the classroom.

By assessing and where necessary, engaging in personalised feedback dialogue in the lesson, we gain multiple advantages:

  1. The teacher is replacing the time and effort they would spend on marking, non-directed time, with only the possibility that they may need to spend directed time, inside of lesson time, on feedback. The teacher need not feel guilty, as not marking + giving feedback in the lesson (if necessary), helps the learner learn better.

  2. The non-directed time spent by the teacher will be less - today - because this kind of assessment is far quicker than marking, and will be less - in the future - because feedback is far more likely to be successful and so similar questions will be asked less frequently and answered more accurately.

  3. The learner has a chance to self correct or self reflect or get peer-to-peer help: so the teacher may not need to spend lesson time giving feedback or failing that, the learner has time to read the question again and will be primed to adjust their chunk or mental schema (Kornell et al 2009) during the feedback-dialogue.

  4. With in-lesson feedback-dialogue the learner is far more likely to engage with the teacher than they are likely to engage with the teacher's marking.

  5. Without marking by the teacher, the teacher and learner can start the feedback-dialogue from a common place.

  6. With in lesson feedback-dialogue the teacher has a chance to learn about learner's past thinking and/or influence the learner's future thinking, more effectively than with marking.

  7. Feedback-dialogue makes excellent, non threatening, feedback for the teacher on fine detail ways to improve future teaching. It allows the teacher to gain decades worth of high quality teaching experience within a much shorter span of time.

  8. Feedback-dialogue provides an opportunity for the teacher to help the learner to better deal with the emotions brought up by errors e.g. to move on from self-criticism or making excuses or blaming others and to help the learner reflect about their question reading or process or problem solving skills i.e. help the learner grow a growth mindset.

  9. Feedback-dialogue is likely to increase the learner's motivation whereas marking is likely to decrease it.

  10. Sometimes during feedback-dialogue the teacher and/or learner will realise that the layer is BELL best learned later - and this is also a productive use of the teachers and learners time - because now they can stop putting their time and effort into making this layer stick and instead put their efforts in to embedding other layers which are far more likely to stick. After all we can’t expect to go from a place where most teaching is forgotten to a place where absolutely all teaching becomes embedded learning. Surely a process where almost all teaching becomes embedded learning should satisfy us - there is no shortage of other layers to teach - before returning, to see if this layer will stick in a few months time.

The main disadvantage (such as it is) is that there is very little in the way of an easy to follow paper trail of the efforts the teacher has put in. There is the record that feedback dialogue has been requested, and possibly the corrected workings by the learner. In future assignments we usually see the learner being able to answer correctly similar questions and there is the record of the subsequent progress on the layer within the timely practice app. If the teacher must be checked up on, then the “checker-upper” must do the work to find out if the teaching is successful or not. This counterposes with a marking trail - where the teacher is doing the work of demonstrating that they have tried - but cannot possibly demonstrate that they have been successful - in enabling the learner to embed the learning.

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titleTop Tip 3: if the assessment outcome is feedback on blank, position the asterisk** so that the learner can see it, but preserve almost all of the answer space.

Not giving hints etc will pay dividends, as the answer space can be used to answer the question

  • by the learner and teacher to model answering if the learner gets peer-to-peer help or feedback-dialogue with the teacher

  • by the learner if the learner can actually do the question - perhaps they just didn’t see it, they got distracted, they were having “an off-day” etc

** or other symbol used to show that the answer is not fully correct but that the teacher wishes the learner to try and self correct/get peer help/get feedback

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titleTop Tip 4: use the answers within timely practice app

Even though many questions will take the teacher "next to no time" to work out the correct answer, the teacher should use the answers provided by the app, because 

  • the small bits of extra time to read the question and work out the correct answer add up,

  • it distracts the teacher from the assessment task - i.e. how well is this learner able to apply their learning - it is harder, and therefore takes fractionally longer, for the teacher to switch back and forth between doing maths and assessing maths.

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(7) Classify examples of feedback-dialogue

(8) feedback

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(fixing incomplete/incorrect chunks) is best after a nights sleep

Contrary to our expectations, feedback is better given after one sleep, than directly after an error. It seems that if we give feedback on the day of the error, we may not be as effectively triggering reconsolidation - see (2) above - that is we are not as effectively triggering the brain to change chunks in long-term memory. On the other hand, if we leave feedback for too many days, then feedback is not as effective as it could be, because forgetting has further deteriorated the learning our feedback is trying to fix.

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titletimely practice offers feedback the next maths lesson - which is close to ideal

I wish I could say that is why timely practice expects the teacher to assess assignments between one lesson and the next, so that feedback is delayed by at least one sleep. However the main reasons for this fundamental decision are:

  • to reduce the need for learners to having one computing device per learner and the need for reliable access to wifi in every lesson,

  • to get learners to write by hand their workings and diagrams, just as they must in a test (which may also be more effective at embedding learning).

There are number of general problems that feedback needs to overcome.

  1. The learner has built an incomplete chunk in long-term memory - despite timely practice layers being small and therefore easier to learn, sometimes the learner will need more support to build a chunk - the teacher, via feedback-dialogue, should work with the learner to find what is missing and help the learner fix it. See also (5) fading scaffolding, for more about this. We recommend assessing rather than marking of assignments, to assist with this. With marking, the teacher might write a note to the learner, showing the missing bits, but with feedback-dialogue, we help the learner add the missing bits to the chunk, ideally via questioning rather than telling.

  2. The learner has not replaced/adapted an incorrect chunk built some time ago, with a new/adapted chunk in long-term memory. This is different from 1. in that the chunk to do the old incorrect method hasn’t been overwritten, despite perhaps a new chunk being built in the lesson. So here we are working on changing the trigger i.e. the learner choosing the new correct chunk, rather than the old incorrect one. The best way to do this, is to offer a reason why the old incorrect one is incorrect or inefficient which chimes with the learner’s understanding.

  3. The learner is still reliant on some of the “unacknowledged scaffolding'' of the lesson e.g. placement of workings out on the page or use of a diagram etc. See (5) fading scaffolding for more about this.

  4. The learner has misread the question or poorly applied their numeracy skills when answering the question. This is likely to be due to working memory overload - all learners, even the most able A level maths learners experience it. As they are learning and working through something new and hard, they are unable to accurately apply skills which are usually easy for them. I sometimes describe this effect to students as their brain isn’t very good at easy thinking and hard thinking at the same time. The best we can offer learners as they practise, is that they can look through their workings out for accuracy periodically. Sometimes I suggest they write “check for accuracy” on the answer line, as an aide memoire, for when they think they have solved the problem. We need to encourage learners to realise that making “silly mistakes” is often a sign of hard learning going on, not a sign that “they can’t even do the easy maths”.