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Those who have long enough been immersing in the field of education must be familiar with the term "feedback." Merriam-Webster defines it as "the transmission of evaluative or corrective information about an action, event, or process to the original or controlling source. In my opinion, giving feedback is an integral part of education as it directs learners to get better in their next phase of learning. This was even further confirmed after I read a very captivating research conducted by Dindar, Järvelä and Järvenojä (2020). Although the study did not put feedback as the central topic, the results revealed how it is a prerequisite to foster students' metacognitive skills in collaborative learning.
Having been working in the teaching and learning sector for quite some time, I often heard my colleagues' and students' thoughts about feedback in an educational context. In this article, I am trying to elaborate on those views and examine whether they are appropriate or not, based on particularly Dindar, et al.'s (2020).
#1 Feedbacks are to be given at the end of the learning process
This is a typical mindset found among the teachers in my school that feedbacks = assessments = progress report which means we just need to work on it before the Christmas or summer holiday. This is so not in line with what the research implied. During the study, the three most contributing factors in metacognitive and collaborative learning are mental effort, emotional valence and feedback (Dindar, et al., 2020). That is because during the learning process, learners sometimes make an inaccurate judgment about theirs or the group's performance and hence, providing feedback is able to help them regulate their strategy and consequently perform better. In other words, feedback works as a scaffolding for the students who, even in group working, still struggle to monitor their own learning as a part of metacognitive strategies. Should it be given at the end of learning, students will not have the chance to correct and improve themselves.
#2 Feedbacks will just lower learners' self-esteem
I think this depends on what kind of feedback and the way we deliver it to the learner. First thing first, feedback must be objective which means the evaluation we give to the students is more about their work than themselves. Once students perceive the correction is directed to their person, they will feel uncomfortable with it. When giving feedback, we ought to ignore the mistakes they did in the previous lessons and think positively that every one of them is capable to perform well.
Another point to be noticed is regarding the "diction" in our feedback when delivered either spoken or written. Make sure we avoid negative adjectives and replace them with positive and optimistic ones. For example, rather than saying, "Your voice was really small during the rehearsal" we can put it like, "Please speak louder in the next rehearsal." That kind of wording, in addition to uncritical tone, is the perfect formula for well-accepted feedback. All of these are based on what my students told me why they are sometimes uncomfortable and even, becoming discouraged because of feedback.
#3 Feedbacks are directed to students only
For the last point, it is also not less important as it reminds all of us, teachers, that we are lifelong learners. That implies we undergo trials and errors in our teaching as well. I sometimes forget about this and get upset when receiving useful feedback from my supervisor, other teachers and students. To be able to learn from others' feedback, open-mindedness is obviously needed and I think this is what sometimes I fail to do. We must acknowledge that learning is a never-ending process in our life and we ought to keep improving many aspects of our life, which sometimes we ourselves are unable to notice. Open-mindedness lets us welcome any feedback aimed for our improvement. Therefore, that is the key to undergo a lifelong process.
Hopefully, this page is able to emphasize the crucial role of feedback in teaching and learning. Not only it enables students to improve their learning performance, but it also helps teachers and educators in their professional development. Furthermore, the study by Dindar, et al. (2020) proves that even contemporary learning which incorporates metacognition and collaboration does not neglect its importance. In fact, feedback is one of the determining factors for optimum performance.
Reference
Dindar, Muhterem & Järvelä, Sanna & Järvenoja, Hanna. (2020). Interplay of metacognitive experiences and performance in collaborative problem solving. Computers & Education. 10.1016/j.compedu.2020.103922.