Resource: Wise Feedback Card
Best Practices: Feedback
Overview
While all feedback has a big impact on students and learning, some kinds of feedback can actually lower interest, effort or persistence. Wise and mastery oriented feedback can build student motivation, persistence and, ultimately, achievement.
The Critical Role of Feedback
While all feedback has a big impact on students and learning, wise and mastery oriented feedback can build student motivation, persistence and, ultimately, achievement.
Some kinds of feedback can actually lower interest, effort or persistence. For example, personal praise like “You're so smart” or “You're a natural” can inhibit resilience and effort. It focuses on intrinsic qualities that seem unchangeable and promotes the idea that students either “have it” or “don't
Why is effective feedback important?
The Challenge:
Many students decide early on if they are “good” or “bad” in science; that is, they have a fixed mindset about their abilities.
What does the research say?
Feedback that emphasizes effort and persistence over inherent ability can overcome a fixed mindset because it teaches that success in science is about curiosity, practice, effort, and learning from past experiences. Research shows that wise and mastery oriented feedback combined can help motivate learners and move students from a fixed mindset about their abilities to a growth mindset, where students see themselves as learners who work through challenges and view setbacks as opportunities.
- Wise feedback affirms two things: an educator's high standards, and his or her faith in each student's abilities to reach those standards. In a 2013 study of 7th graders , “wise feedback” in the form of a short note that emphasized the teacher's high standards and belief that the student was capable of meeting those standards resulted in increased students’ likelihood of submitting revisions of an essay and improved the overall quality of students’ final drafts. The effect was particularly strong among African American students who felt more distrusting of school and perceived a bias toward their racial group.
- Mastery oriented feedback focuses on student effort, persistence, and strategy use, reinforcing the idea that learner growth comes from effort, reflection, and learning from all outcomes, rather than from “inborn talent.” In Mueller and Dweck's foundational 1998 study , students who received mastery oriented feedback on progressively more difficult tasks were subsequently more likely to accept challenges, persist in the face of difficulties, and were more resilient when faced with setbacks. Mastery oriented feedback realigns learner's beliefs about intelligence from one in which intelligence as fixed and unmalleable, to one in which intelligence is something that can grow through a learner's hard work.
For more on the power of wise and mastery oriented feedback in building motivation and persistence, see (Cohen, Steel, Ross, 1999; Dweck, 2002).
Best Practices: use feedback to motivate students
- Establish expectations early and build trust with students. Wise feedback works when each student truly believes that instructors have high expectations and instructors are confident in students’ ability to achieve those expectations.
- Give mastery oriented feedback in varied contexts. Don't save mastery oriented feedback for just written work; give feedback on strategy use, effort, persistence, and growth over time orally, to the whole class, and to small groups as well.
- Encourage students to give mastery oriented feedback to peers.
- Avoid praise feedback. Feedback such as “You're so smart” or “It's your lucky day, you aced this!” actually discourages effort and persistence because it focuses on uncontrollable, intrinsic qualities (being smart or lucky) rather than effort or persistence.
How to give wise and mastery oriented feedback with SNUDLE
As a teacher, you can give feedback on almost every page of SNUDLE. The teacher time savers we've included are grounded in the ideas of wise and mastery oriented feedback. Using these time savers will help you craft feedback that motivates and encourages your students to develop a growth mindset in science.
You can also use printable cards to try giving wise and mastery oriented feedback to students. Keep them on hand to remind yourself of strong feedback strategies. Mastery Oriented Feedback Card | Wise Feedback Cards
Learn more about the research
Learn more about the impact of mastery oriented feedback
Read:
- "The Secret to Raising Smart Kids, " by Carol Dweck. Scientific American, Jan 1, 2015 --In a recent article, Dweck provides an approachable exploration of the power, and perils, of feedback. This article includes scenarios describing learners holding differing mindsets.
- "A Social-Cognitive Approach to Motivation and Personality ." Dweck., Carol S., Leggett, Ellen L. 1988, --Dweck and Leggett's foundational research on how feedback relates to approaches to learning, motivation, and persistence.
- "How Not to Talk to Your Kids: The inverse power of praise, " by Po Bronson--Bronson's New York Times article discussing the culture of personal praise and its impact on learner resilience.
- “The Perils and Promise of Praise ” by Carol Dweck --Carol Dweck provides a quick, accessible overview of recent research on feedback and mindset.
- "Helping Students Motivate Themselves ," by Katherine Schulten ---In her blog post, Schulten includes both a TED talk video by Daniel Pink discussing the science of learning and motivation, as well as Larry Ferlazzo's discussion of practical strategies that are ready for teachers to use in the classroom.
- Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, Carol S. Dweck, 2007. --Carol Dweck discusses the research on mindset and its impact on learner motivation, persistence, and success.
View:
- Carol Dweck-A Study on Praise and Mindsets - Trevor Ragan presents Dweck's research on the connection of praise and learner mindset (4:51)
Learn more about the impact of wise feedback
Read:
- "Breaking the Cycle of Mistrust: Wise Interventions to Provide Critical Feedback Across the Racial Divide. " Yeager, 2014
- “Wise Critiques Help Students Succeed ”Stanford University's SPARQ site provides a succinct summary of the educational problem raised by stereotyping, the impact of wise feedback, and a summary of why it works.
- "Social-Psychological Interventions in Education: They're Not Magic " Yeager,David S.; Walton, Gregory M., 2011. Yeager and Walton review research on small but highly effective and lasting social-psychological interventions and their relationship to educational and social contexts.
- “A Barrier of Mistrust: How Negative Stereotypes Affect Cross-Race Mentoring ” by Geoffrey L. Cohen and Claude M. Steele. Cohen and Steele discuss the research on stereotype threat and mitigating strategies, including wise feedback, to reduce mistrust and increase student effort, persistence, and achievement.