Feedback that fits

For this post, I read "Feedback that fits."
I can relate to what this article is saying about feedback needing to be prompt and constructive.  In my experience, I have been able to help kids achieve that "A" column of the rubric by giving them feedback throughout the process part of a project.  I have noticed that feedback has to be cultured within the student, and it is a means of facilitating quality communication between student and teacher.  For example, I start projects by having students email me a pitch of their ideas.  I can then do the first level of feedback by asking questions of them that lead them to answer whether or not the topic/idea they picked has enough substance to reach the "A" column of the rubric.  This is emailed back (with some possible suggestions to help), and the student has an opportunity to re-pitch using some of my suggestions or suggestions of their own.  I think this "start" helps break the ice (some students are scared of communicating with teachers) and encourage kids to continue back and forth with the dialogue (I like to think of it as trading feedback-how the student responds to my feedback is feedback for me).  I am also finding that kids communicate more freely with me when an electronic dialogue is going on.  Because I have opened the door to feedback from the start of a project, kids tend to be more willing to share with me and accept what I share with them (collaboration).  My students do not wait until the end of a project to "discover" they did not do well because we have a consistent dialogue of feedback going both directions (which does evolve from electronic to verbal) so they know before the end what level they have achieved, and most often it is the "A".  I see many teachers in my school focus on product versus process, and the grade for the student is usually a surprise because they had no guiding help along the way.  Another frustration I have is that so many teachers still give the paper and pen projects for both individual and group work (which makes feedback a little more difficult because you can't see student progress or process, so it is more difficult and time consuming to provide prompt feedback).  They give due dates for different parts of the project to be completed so that there are steps to attempt to make sure students are staying on task.  The problem arises when students start missing these due dates or turn in substandard work on the due date, and the teacher ends up giving a 0 or a lower grade (for the substandard work) for that part of the process that was due.  If a student misses one or more of the stepping stones to the project, or if the student receives a 0 for a late or incomplete part of the assignment, how can the student be expected to achieve the highest grade possible on the final elements of the project?  At each due date, the feedback is a grade.  I have seen how students react when they don't do well on one part of a multi-step project: they become ambivalent about the entire project.  Thus, no real learning or quality learning can or will occur.  If the purpose of having students complete a project is for students to learn x, y, and z, then feedback should match those goals.  If a teacher received an annual evaluation with a list of things he could have done better throughout the year, he  would wonder why the principal didn't just come and tell him before the end of the year, and he would have corrected right away.  Our students deserve the same courtesy.

The information at http://www.learning.ox.ac.uk/rsv.php?page=319 also helps put feedback into context and reiterates the point that if you can't correct something if you don't know it is wrong or deficient. I like the "Some things to consider when giving feedback" section because box 1 shows what to do and box 2 gives an example of how to do it.  I also learned there are three main forms of feedback for written work: referential, directive, and expressive.  This part was helpful because it put into context the type so I can match it with different parts and goals of the assignment that I give feedback.

As an extra note on feedback from being a student, both research papers I completed this summer (one 41 pages, one 24 pages) had zero feedback.  I am left with the impression that the only person who read my research was the college reviewer (who actually gave me content feedback with the mechanics feedback because she enjoyed reading my paper).  If no one read it, why did I do it?