My struggle with giving student feedback (Meaningful and Timely)

During the first semester, I struggled with a lot of different issues around Distance Learning. The one that bothered me the most, and was a constant discussion point during our weekly grade level content team meetings, was student feedback. I felt that, for most of the semester, I was not doing a good job by any means of giving students feedback on their work. 

I struggled with trying to figure out how to give 160 students feedback that was meaningful and timely. I was teaching skills, having students practice these skills, and then assessing these skills. I would then make broad generalizations from the data and try to fill the gaps. But there was nothing individualized that would allow each and every student to look at their own work and read my feedback to them. 

 For the math content, it is important to identify where students are making their mistakes, communicate that to students and give them specific feedback what to do correctly. In the classroom, I found this easier as I could see students' work but in Distance Learning the work submitted is difficult to read on the papers that were being submitted. 

 After Thanksgiving break I started being more strategic in my student assignments in my aim to achieve the goal of giving each student individualized feedback on their work. While I am still working on this area, here are some of the resources I have been using and how I have been trying to give student feedback. 

Khan Academy

I tell students that this resource will give immediate feedback - right or wrong.  When you are wrong, then reach out during the class period to get immediate assistance.  I try to use this resource with every lesson so that students can get feedback on their understanding and application of the skill taught.

Google Slides

I use Google Slides to assign students an activity related to the skill taught.  They turn in the assignment and I provide individual feedback to each student in the 'private comment' section for problems that are done incorrectly.  While this is a little bit more time consuming, I find it valuable because it forces me to slow down and and actually look at each student's work.  I can then provide comments that identify the mistake and exactly how to proceed correctly.

Edulastic

This is my assessment resource.  At least one of the questions requires written feedback or for students to show their work.  It is on these problems that I write a comment in the 'feedback' section to students so that they know what their mistake was and how to fix it.  Again, while this is time consuming, it again allows me to see students on an individual level and offer individual feedback.

Desmos

This website is constantly teaching me something new this year.  I have learned that there are ways for the website to check student answers and tell students if they need to go back and fix there work.  I have also learned recently that you can provide student feedback on a particular slide that the student has wrong - the program will then indicate to the teacher when the comment has actually been read, which no other resource I use offers that added feature.

The next step in my struggle for this area is to teach students to read the feedback, reflect on it, and finally act on the feedback given.  I want students to know as soon as possible that they are not understanding the skill, to then understand my feedback to them, and finally to change their actions so that they show understanding of the skill.

Thank you for reading and I encourage you to give yourself 'grace' during these difficult times and then to give yourself more 'grace.'

Kevin Stott                       

De Anza Middle School  

7th/8th/Integrated I Math