2020-21 GARC Research Reports: Feedback

Title: 2020-21 GARC Research Reports: Feedback
Description: The pilot program cohort of the Global Action Research Collaborative on Girls’ Education (GARC) explored the topic “Feedback to Move Forward, Thrive, and Grow.” And while a pilot program typically tests the waters of a new initiative, neither we nor these inspirational educators anticipated the global tsunami of the COVID-19 pandemic and its profound impact on our communities. What these Fellows have accomplished as a part of the GARC program is impressive. That they accomplished this, however, while switching to remote learning, juggling families and teaching, and midstream shifting methods for gathering data, is—simply put—extraordinary. I want to take a moment to offer my sincere appreciation to these trailblazing Fellows for never wavering, no matter how stormy the seas, for shifting course while doing double and triple duty, and for remaining steadfast in their commitment to this program.
Related Resources: Global Action Research Reports
Subject: feedback
Date: 2021
category: Teaching and Learning

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Feedback Conversations to Motivate Adolescent Girls’ Learning: Using Conversations to Progress Learning, Resilience, and Confidence
Karen Lewis (2020) 2020

There is often a disconnect between the feedback teachers give and their students’ willingness or ability to apply that feedback to their own writing. Teachers understand, though, that the way they give feedback can impact student confidence and resilience. For girls as social learners who value relationships, some form of dialogue can help to facilitate uptake of feedback and potentially support confidence and resilience. There is not an extensive body of research, however, that explores the experiences of feedback specifically for adolescent girls. In response to this, action research on student engagement with feedback was undertaken in a large all-girls’ school in Brisbane, Australia. A group of thirty-six Year 11 English Literature students engaged in feedback conversations to encourage clarification of feedback and self-evaluation of their work. Feedback conversation transcripts, student surveys, focus group discussions, and student grades were used to find the impact of such conversations on student confidence, uptake of feedback, and improvement to their writing. Those students who engaged with feedback conversations reported feeling positive about their own learning, having improved confidence towards their potential exam performance, being more receptive to feedback, and had an increase in overall grades under exam conditions. Further research on the impact of prolonged use of feedback conversations is warranted, especially related to student confidence, resilience, and writing performance.
Fostering Resilience Through Quality Feedback in One-on-One Mentoring
Núria Tapias Nadales (2020) 2020

La Vall is a girls’ school located in Bellaterra (near Barcelona) with approximately 1,500 students between 1 and 18 years old, and belonging to Institució Familiar d'Educació , an educational institution with 13 schools in Catalonia and the Balearic Islands. The school’s main objective is to offer a personalized education model, based on the five dimensions of the person (physical, affective, social, rational, transcendental) that are described in the Integral Human Development theory. This study aimed to explore through surveys, interviews, and self-reflection how feedback in one-on-one mentoring is beneficial to secondary female students’ (13-16 years old) personal and academic progress, considering the five dimensions of the person mentioned above, and how appropriate feedback may enhance self-confidence and growth, and thus resilience. The outcomes of this action research suggest mentoring is an effective tool in resilience development when there is a trusting relationship between student and mentor, and when goals and action plans are student-initiated. Adequate training and time allocation seem necessary tools to ensure effective mentoring that promotes the development of protective factors that result in resilience and balanced growth.
Show What You Know: How Girls’ Academic Confidence Increases with Multiple and Differentiated Ways of Sharing What They Learned
Julie Haines (2020) 2020

This action research project investigated the hypothesis that when elementary school girls are able to choose from a menu of differentiated assessments their academic confidence increases and their assessment stress decreases. In this study, students in grades two, three, and four in an all-girls’ independent school in the United States were given choices in the assessment process. Students used a Likert scale to rate their academic confidence in the topic of a STEAM mini-unit at the beginning and end of instruction. At the conclusion of each mini-unit, students chose their preferred method of assessment to show what they had learned—show what you know. The assessment choices were: creating a labeled drawing, building a model, taking a multiple choice test, recording a Flipgrid, taking a Kahoot quiz, or other (student’s choice). In addition, the parents of the students provided feedback and insights on the academic confidence and the learning achieved by their daughters. The study demonstrates that providing students with “voice and choice” from a variety of assessment methods may contribute to increased academic confidence and improved learning outcomes.