Say what you mean and mean what you say. Words matter and the selection of words used as educational feedback to children matters greatly. As teachers, coaches, directors, and mentors, we provide thousands of feedback words to children every day. How calibrated are your words so that you are saying exactly what you should say?
I observe that feedback to children over time becomes gratuitous and conversational. Listen to the feedback you hear around you. We typically say what the listener expects and wants to hear and we say it without specific learning context. We make our feedback pleasing, non-critical, and uninformative – easy feedback is easy to give. As we launch the 22-23 school year, the words we choose as feedback should be recalibrated so that we are saying not only what we mean to say but what children need to hear as we to cause them to learn.
Apply the term “authentic” to the distribution of feedback. But, know what authentic means. Merriam-Webster tells us authentic means “being actually and exactly what is claimed”. Authentic is a clear and precise razor to apply to feedback. Sharpen your vocabulary so that your feedback to a child explicitly describes the learning the child demonstrates and provides the necessary description, praise/criticism, reinforcement/correction, self-building, and direction that the child needs to hear.
The bell-shaped curve of statistical distribution can be applied to giving feedback. Picture the bell in your mind’s eye and apply it graphically to the student work and work effort you observe. The greatest amount of work from children daily meets our general expectations; it is the great space under the dome of the bell, especially when we apply the rule of 80 – 80% of children should successfully learn 80% of what we teach through initial instruction 80% of the time. Statistically, we expect 66% of student work to be in this zone – the rule of 80 expands this zone that we think of as statistically average. The margins of difference under this dome on either side of the true mean are small enough that minimal corrections through adjusted teaching move children to improved performances of learning.
Sadly, we have maligned the word average – no one wants to be labeled average – but authentically, average describes the quality of learning children show us when they actually and exactly learn what they were taught. Average is “on the target”. As a better descriptor, use “expected” instead of average.
“That is exactly and clearly what I expected you to do. Good work” is the qualitative feedback that should describe 80% of student work in school under the rule of 80. How often do we hear these words? Not very.
Our contemporary world values esteem over productivity and has difficulty with the word good. Inspirational speakers at educational conventions and conferences tell us that good is not good enough. Jim Collins told us how to Get From Good to Great and good has never been good enough since. “Great” and its synonyms became the new gold standard driving feedback. If good is average, then we must strive to be better than good and feedback on what we are told to expect has never been the same.
Blink twice every time you hear these words in your school today: excellent, fantastic, outstanding, superb, tremendous, terrific, wonderful, exceptional, splendid, phenomenal. These are both synonyms for great and the most frequently used words to describe student work. That is a lot of blinking. Is all that we claim to be great really great or is great how we now label what we expect? This is not what we mean, I think.
Recalibration of feedback means
- understanding what is expected and describe it in actual and exact terms. Don’t inflate to deflate, just describe what you observe against what you expect.
“You sounded out and pronounced those words exactly as they are spelled.”
“Your practice is paying off – you played that piece exactly as the music is written.”
“Your use of color and shading are very good and show you are paying attention to our demonstrations.”
“The corners in the box you built are exactly 90 degrees to each other. Good job.”
“You all are keeping pace with each other as we walk to the cafeteria. Thank you.”
- using comparatives to describe things that are more than you expected. Comparatives work because they describe more than you expected but keep you clear of over-exaggeration.
”Your mathematical reasoning is getting better. You went beyond the numbers and gave an example of how we use rectangular shaped fields in athletics.”
“You are improving in listening to spoken Spanish and hearing it as Spanish not translated English.”
“You show a growing understanding of the scope of the universe beyond the stars we see at night”.
- using superlatives to describe things that are well beyond what is expected and are so exemplary that they are unusual in frequency. Superlatives add -est to your descriptors.
”That was exceptional – the best I have seen in years.”
“Outstanding. You performed that as well as a person who has been playing for many years.”
“Your explanation was superb – college-like in your understanding of the concepts and how they work.”
“Perfect. I could not have done better myself.”
“You get the blue ribbon. That is the best lab work I have seen in years.”
Keep the model of what you expect students to say, do, perform, behave, and be in mind as you give them your feedback. Then make your feedback exactly and actually descriptive of what you see and hear and feel about their work.
Lastly, keep a second thought in mind. Children know honesty and sincerity when they hear and read it. Your smile and a nod of approval may be all the honestly and sincerity a child needs to understand that they are meeting your expectations. And, that after all, is what most children in school want to do – meet the expectations of their teachers.