Why is Ongoing Feedback Important?

In Seven Keys to Effective Feedback, Grant Wiggins states, “What makes any assessment in education formative is not merely that it precedes summative assessments, but that the performer has opportunities, if results are less than optimal, to reshape the performance to better achieve the goal.” Wiggins uses a computer game analogy to further illustrate this: if you are playing Angry Birds or Tetris and you fail, what do you do? You immediately start over, learning from the previous round. A feedback loop is put in place to begin immediate improvement.

While engaging in various learning opportunities, students should receive varied modes of feedback (teacher, peer, self, oral, written, multimedia, etc.) and should be given the opportunity to apply this feedback on an ongoing basis before a summative assessment takes place.

Taking this a step further, Rick Wormeli, in Fair Isn’t Always Equal: Assessing and Grading in the Differentiated Classroom, advocates for allowing redos, even on “summative” assessments. In doing so, students are given the opportunity to engage with feedback to try and meet proficiency or even mastery. Again, the role of the educator, in coaching students in the application of this feedback and assisting in setting actionable tasks as a redo learning goal, can help students engage in this valuable opportunity on a deeper and more productive level.

If considering redos for summative assessments, consider allowing your students to use SpacesEDU to demonstrate proficiency in learning. Redos do not require that an entire summative assessment is redone. It could simply be the one learning objective that the student did not meet proficiency in. To support the practice of redos, teachers can re-allow submissions in SpacesEDU when using the Activities feature. Providing a space with multiple modes of communication could be the differentiator that a student needs to demonstrate understanding of feedback and the learning objective.