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Transition to school

Features of early years pedagogies: Feedback

Feedback is information provided by a teacher, peer or self on aspects of performance or understanding (Hattie & Timperley, 2007).

Feedback identifies gaps in learning and is a two-way process. Teachers provide feedback to support students to complete a task or achieve an outcome; students act on this feedback to support their learning. Feedback is more effective when teachers and students have good relationships and allow space and time for feedback.

The following table identifies teacher and student actions for feedback:

TeacherStudent

The teacher:

  • creates a safe classroom and maintains trusting relationships where students feel they can take risks and make mistakes
  • provides feedback by focusing on the strengths of individual student’s achievement and on the areas for improvement
  • provides feedback on the learning goal and success criteria
  • frames feedback by addressing the following areas:
    • where is the student going?
    • how is the student going?
    • where to next?
  • provides feedback that is within the zone of proximal development* of the student
  • uses a range of feedback opportunities, e.g. student-led conferencing, , informal conferencing, reflection discussions, guide to making judgments/criteria sheets
  • provides a range of feedback, e.g. verbal cues, questions, on-the-spot feedback, written, taken away and marked, intentional pauses, photographs
  • uses feedback to inform professional practice
  • encourages self/peer feedback.

The student:

  • feels safe to take risks and make mistakes
  • feels that the teacher has positively acknowledged an element of their work
  • identifies (with the support of the teacher) what they know, what they understand, where they made errors and how they can improve
  • understands the gap between their current level of performance and the desired performance
  • recognises that feedback comes in different forms
  • accepts the feedback positively and acts on it to transform learning
  • uses feedback for goal setting
  • begins to develop internal feedback through self-regulation and self-monitoring.

Footnotes
* The zone of proximal development (ZPD) is 'the distance between the actual development level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance, or in collaboration with more capable peers’(Vygotsky, 1978, p. 86).

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Annette Woods
Associate Professor
Queensland University of Technology

Feedback is another important concept to think about in terms of what it means to engage children in quality learning environments. We would think about not just feedback, however, but also feed forward. So by that, we would be talking about actually providing children with spaces to reflect, and facilitated learning environments where they reflect not only on what they have learnt, but also how that learning might indeed take them forward into new learning contexts.

Rae Welch:

Prep Teacher Jamboree Heights State School

Yesterday we looked at changing that story a little bit. Do you remember? You came up with some really good ideas of how we can change the story. We are going to innovate on that story of The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

Student 1:

On Friday she gobbled up five nuts.

Rae Welch:

Ooh, so which did you change? You changed ‘Monday’ and made it say …

Student 1:

Friday.

Rae Welch:

You changed ‘he’ and made it say …

Student 1:

She.

Rae Welch:

You changed ‘ate through’ and made it say …

Student 1:

Gobbled.

Rae Welch:

Gobbled …?

Student 1:

Up.

Rae Welch:

‘Up’. Good boy. You changed ‘one’ to say …

Student 1:

Five.

Rae Welch:

And ‘apple’ to say …

Student 1:

Nuts.

Rae Welch:

Oh, well done. You innovated that story, changing all five different parts. I want you to write me a sentence innovating on this one, changing it a little bit.

Rae Welch:

I use feedback continually across the day for the children to acknowledge when they’ve learnt something and achieved a skill. Then it gives them that confidence that, ‘Yes I’ve done well’, or to help redirect them and not have them go on making the same mistake constantly throughout that activity. Feedback is used immediately as best as possible, so that we can redirect and regather thoughts and move onto the new skills.

Student 2:

‘On Tuesday he saw eight blue apples.’

Rae Welch:

Well done. I like that. Do you know what I like about it? I can see you’ve used a capital letter to start your sentence. Well done. You’ve used a full stop at the end of your sentence. I love that. And ‘apples’. Hmm … can you find that word anywhere else on the page?

Student 2:

Mmm.

Rae Welch:

Ah yes, so if I give you my pen, do you want to have another go there at writing the word ‘apples’ for me?

Rae Welch:

When giving back feedback to children, here at our school we have a system that we try to work on: two stars and a wish. So we work … we acknowledge two positive things that the children have done with their work at this stage and a wish or a goal or the next step of where we’d like them to be heading. So it’s recognising their good work and helping them look at where they can take their work next time, to make it even better.

Rae Welch:

We want it to say, ‘On Tuesday, he saw eight blue apples’. I wonder how we could make it say ‘apples’?

Student 2:

S.

Rae Welch:

Ah! Great thinking. Pop an ‘s’ on the end.

Annette Woods:

Quality teachers know that intervening with children’s learning at just the right time, at that time when children just need something to take them forward into the new ways of learning or into new understandings. And part of our decision-making process is about watching children, and knowing children well.

Last updated:
31 March 2023

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

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