Setting Objectives and Providing Feedback                                home

Provide students a direction for learning and information regarding how well they are performing relative to a particular learning goal so that they can improve their performance.

Generalizations From Research

1. Setting instructional goals narrows what students focus on.
2. Teachers should encourage students to personalize the learning goals the teacher has identified for them.
3. Instructional goals should not be too specific.
4. Feedback should be corrective in nature.
5. Feedback should be timely.
6. Feedback should be specific to a criterion.
7. Students can effectively provide some of their own feedback.

Example Activities

• Rubrics
• Example Work -- a "visual rubric" that includes "A", "B", "C", or 4, 3, 2, 1 and unacceptable quality work.
• Electronic Portfolios
• Publish student work

Recommendations & Ideas

1. Set Learning Objectives or Goals that are specific but flexible
2. Contract with students to obtain specific learning objectives or goals
3. Use criterion-referenced feedback
4. Focus feedback on specific types of knowledge
5. Use student-led feedback

Information presented above in the definition is from McREL, and generalizations from research, and recommendations & ideas is from Classroom Instruction that Works: Research-Based Strategies for Increasing Student Achievement (ASCD)(Robert J. Marzano, Debra J. Pickering, Jane E. Pollock).

Web 2.0 Connections

Category Key: And links to more tools

SD = Identifying Similarities and Differences CL = Cooperative Learning SNT = Summarizing and Note-Taking ER = Reinforcing Effort and Providing Recognition HP = Homework and Practice NR = Nonlinguistic Representation OF = Setting Objectives and Providing Feedback HYP = Generating and Testing Hypotheses QCO = Questions, Cues, and Advance Organizers