PG's Ponderings

Seven Keys to Effective Feedback Grant Wiggins Advice, evaluation, grades—none of these provide the descriptive information that students need to reach their goals. What is true feedback—and how can it improve learning? Who would dispute the idea that feedback is a good thing? Both common sense and research make it clear: Formative assessment, consisting of lots of feedback and opportunities to use that feedback, enhances performance and achievement. Yet even John Hattie (2008), whose decades of research revealed that feedback was among the most powerful influences on achievement, acknowledges that he has "struggled to understand the concept" (p. 173). And many writings on the subject don't even attempt to define the term. To improve formative assessment practices among both teachers and assessment designers, we need to look more closely at just what feedback is—and isn't. What Is Feedback, Anyway? The term feedback is often used to describe all kinds of comments mad...

by Michael Michalko for Think Jar Collective (2013) . We learn about great ideas and we learn the names of the creative geniuses who created them, but we are seldom taught about how they got the ideas. Following are twelve things about creative thinking: YOU ARE CREATIVE. The artist is not a special person, each one of us is a special kind of artist. Every one of us is born a creative, spontaneous thinker. The only difference between people who are creative and people who are not is a simple belief. Creative people believe they are creative. People who believe they are not creative, are not. The reality is that believing you are not creative excuses you from trying or attempting anything new. When someone tells you that they are not creative, you are talking to someone who has no interest and will make no effort to be a creative thinker. CREATIVE THINKING IS WORK. You must have passion and the determination to immerse yourself in the process of creating new and different ideas. Then yo...

Thank you for your collective contribution to the discussion on Friday – it had me thinking about the power of collective thought which led to this article: Is Collective Intelligence Like Individual Intelligence? by Tom Atlee (2003). The article follows. The capacities I explore here are perception, communication, memory, reflection, problem-solving, creativity, implementation, and feedback. They are listed in a loose order (we perceive first, then think about what we saw, then implement what we decide, etc.). Keep in mind, however, that these capacities are not really separate or linear. Most of them are deeply involved in each other's functioning. But I think you will find it interesting to explore them separately with me here... PERCEPTION - Seeing, hearing, feeling, etc. -- these are different ways we absorb information from our environment, or gather it from within ourselves. This information is the foundation for everything we do with our intelligence. HOW DO WE DO THIS CO...

Reynolds, 2009 says that inquiry learning allows the students to partake in their own learning and therefore allowing the learning to be unpredictable and open-ended. It will permit the students to take on the role of understanding as to what is happening in their world and to use prior knowledge already obtained as the starting point for their learning on a particular topic. Reynolds, 2009 continues to explain that inquiry learning permits the teacher to work along the students in developing their learning together giving teachers a better understanding and perspective when creating lesson as to what the students are already familiar with and what they would like to know about a particular topic that is being studied in class. It will also allow the students to have a better perception about their lessons therefore giving the students the opportunity to obtain a deeper knowledge about the subject that is to be taught. Pelton (2010) says that for teachers inquiry learning will place an...

Alan McLean (2003) , identified three internal drivers that motivate all learners and that a greater understanding of these drivers by schools and teachers can help to increase levels of self-motivation. Affiliation: feelings of belonging and connectedness with others. Agency: the degree of self-belief or self-confidence. It is the belief that one has the capacity and ability to learn and achieve. Autonomy: the capacity to be self-determining and to exercise control The implications for teachers and schools Mclean identifies strategies that will help schools to develop a climate where both teachers and students can become more self-motivated. He calls them the 'external drivers' of motivation. They are: Engagement - taking a genuine interest in individuals: valuing, respecting and affirming them as people and having high expectations of what they might achieve. Structure - providing people with a secure environment in which they know where they stand and are clear what is expe...

"2014 is the year the Web turns 25. Today, 19 August, marks the anniversary of Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, releasing the code of the WWW to the public by making the files available on the net via FTP (refer to the History of the World Wide Web for more details). Last March in Vancouver, Tim Berners-Lee gave a TED Talk: A Magna Carta for the Web , that was just released by the TED conference: These are extracted from his concluding remarks: What sort of web do you want? I want one which is not fragmented into lots of pieces, as some countries have been suggesting they should do in reaction to recent surveillance. I want a web which is, for example, a really good basis for democracy. I want a web where I can use healthcare with privacy and where there's a lot of health data, clinical data is available to scientists to do research. I want a web where the other 60 percent get on board as fast as possible. I want a web which is such a powerful basis for innova...

We have a number of feedback tools. These questions are also useful: What did you like best about this year’s course? What did you like least about this year’s course? What would you suggest that I change? What surprised you most about the work covered? What don't you understand or need help in? Make a list of some of the new things that you learned or found out during the course. Why do you remember those particular points? What do you want to remember about the course work? When do you think you will use what you learned during the course? How did my teaching help you to understand the course? What would have made the learning environment in our class better for you during the year? Katie Lepi's 7 Effective Templates for Teacher Feedback (Edudemic.com, 17 May 2014) is also a very useful resource.

"...a practitioner (who) does not reflect, ... is inattentive to the limits of his actions." (Schön, 1982, p. 282). Schön argued that teaching is not "a method but an art". He postulated that the "artful teacher" will find a way to solve the problems of his students by looking at himself, stating that a teacher will invent new methods to "develop in himself the ability of discovering them". Schön put forward a novel approach, the idea of "reflection-in-practice" and "reflection-on-practice" in which the researcher becomes a part of the practice, allowing the proceedings of practice to continue, thereby confirming the legitimacy of the practice. This approach is based on the teacher demonstrating a "tacit knowing-in-action" which reflects an intuitive understanding of everyday actions. Schön suggested that the reflective practitioner endeavours to make sense of the issues which he or she encounters through the refle...