Feedback

Four Profiles

A way to think about feedback is to make a profile of someone you plan to give feedback to, and think about their readiness to accept and use that feedback. So for example, if you are dealing with a novice, still in the early stages of learning new material, that will influence how you give feedback and the sort of feedback you offer.

InstructionsFour example profiles are provided below. Distribute one or more of them to a group of three participants.

Ask each group to consider the learner described in the profile. Encourage them to discuss the sort of person they’d anticipate the learner to be, and how their circumstances might reveal their attitudes and dispositions towards school. Suggest that the group role-plays the learner, or that they construct an equivalent profile based on typical circumstances and traits of their own learners.

Then ask each group to choose one of the example class assignments that could have been given to the profiled learner. There are examples provided from Science, English, Technology & Design, Geography, Maths, and Citizenship. Suggest that, as an alternative, the group constructs a similar example more specific to the subjects represented among the group members, or that the group uses an anonymised piece of real learner work.

Ask each group to review the examples of feedback. Assign several pieces of feedback to each group, or else ask them to select examples that look relevant to each subject assignment, or to script an example of feedback themselves. Ask each group to match the examples of feedback to the profiled learners. For each learner, choose three pieces of feedback: one for a good response; one for an indifferent response, and one for a response that’s below the standard you expect.

A form is provided for groups to document their considerations.

Finally, ask each group to imagine the learner’s response to each piece of feedback: would they be ready to understand it and take it on board, or reject it? A profile is a mini-biography. Ask them to anticipate each learner’s reactions to the different sorts of feedback that the group has selected. A bank of example responses is provided. Ask them to choose what they think the learner would say in response to the feedback. Encourage each group to create their own responses if they prefer; the examples are provided simply to prompt thinking about how learners are likely to respond to feedback in various circumstances. Suggest that each group role-plays the responses if they’d find that helpful.

Feedback

Four Profiles

Name Sami Sebe

Gender male

Age 14

Nationality Sami is originally from Syria, but has lived in the UK since he was 9. He has dual Syrian and British citizenship. He has many cousins and other relatives still in Syria.

Family Sami lives with his mother and father in Whiteabbey. Sami has two siblings: a sister aged 12 and a brother aged 7.

Circumstances Sami’s family lives in social housing. Both his mother and father work full time. His mother has a job for a contract office cleaning firm that employs mainly immigrant workers. His father is a car mechanic, and was able to get work because of his technical qualifications obtained from a Seat dealership in Syria before the family emigrated.

Interests Sami is really interested in football and supports Manchester United. He’s been to one match at Old Trafford. He is interested in cars and likes helping his dad do his own repairs and maintenance to the family Seat Ibiza.

Performance Sami is doing okay at school. He loves PE, and his best subject is Maths. He struggles with English, although his language abilities are better than his parents, for whom he often has to translate. In most other subjects, he is in the middle of the rank order.

Issues Sami has had a tough time settling into school. He has one or two good friends, but also gets taunted and called names because of his noticeable accent. Classmates have bullied him on several occasions. This came to light after he retaliated to pushing and shoving. This got him into trouble, and for several weeks afterwards, his schoolwork suffered.

Feedback

Four Profiles

Name Alison Kirkpatrick

Gender Female

Age 12

Nationality British

Family Alison lives with her mum and two younger sisters. Her mum is a single parent and Alison has to help out with looking after Claire, 4, and Jessica, 7.

Circumstances Alison’s mum has two part-time jobs: working as a checkout operator at a local supermarket and helping a friend who has a dog grooming business. Money is tight, and the family are expecting cuts to their benefits soon. It’s not clear how much they’ll lose or what effect it’ll have on the family. Alison spends all her spare time helping out at home when her mum is out at work.

Interests Alison likes R & B and is a big fan of Rihanna and Rita Ora. She likes singing and can sing quite well. At school, her favourite subject is English, and she likes reading – especially the Harry Potter books, although really she’s grown out of them now. She hasn’t found another series of books that she likes as much, although she quite likes the Hunger Games.

Performance Alison is popular and easy-going. She has a circle of friends and is generally considered to be a pleasant and well-adjusted class member. Her academic progress is patchy. She appears to make an effort, but is not making the kind of progress expected for her age. Her best subject is Drama, but there is only one module of Drama per term.

Issues Alison is terrified about the effect the imminent benefit cuts will have on her mother, but is hiding her anxiety. Two years ago, her mother separated from her father, who was responsible for instances of domestic violence. There is a restraining order in place preventing her father from coming to the flat, but he wants contact meetings with Alison and her sisters. Alison hates the idea of the contact meetings but hasn’t told her mother how much.

Feedback

Four Profiles

Name Dale McDonald

Gender Male

Age 11

Nationality Irish

Family Dale is an only child. His family is originally from Monaghan. His father brought the family to Belfast in search of work when he lost his job as an electrician at a construction company. His father had been doing well, but was recently made redundant, and has been drinking heavily, leading to tension in the household.

Circumstances The family live in a rented house on the Belvoir estate. Until a month ago, their financial situation was fairly good, but with his father out of work, his mother is insisting that they move back to Monaghan.

Interests In Monaghan, Dale lived beside a plant hire dealership. He’s really interested in diggers and tractors. He spends most of his spare time playing Constructor games on Xbox and watching monster truck videos on YouTube. He hasn’t settled well in Belfast, and misses his friends from Monaghan.

Performance His marks are among the lowest in his class, and he tries to deflect attention from his academic problems by acting out and disrupting others. He has ignored or rebuffed attempts to provide help to make up lost ground. Teachers regularly impose disciplinary sanctions. In the past few weeks, his attitude has deteriorated and he is often surly and confrontational.

Issues Dale is disinterested in school. He has a group of friends, but is also resentful of another group of boys and girls who openly mock him and repeatedly insist that he is from a traveller background.

Feedback

Four Profiles

Name Charlie Barr

Gender Male

Age 13

Nationality British

Family Charlie has two older brothers at the school and a younger sister still at primary school. His mother does voluntary work with a local charity. His father is a civil servant.

Circumstances Charlie is a happy and well-meaning learner. He likes school and is keen to do well. He’s ambitious to do better than his two brothers, and this leads to him wanting to do well in all subjects. He is particularly successful in science.

Interests Charlie plays football, and is on the under 14s team. He is enthusiastic about all aspects of science, and takes part in out-of-class science activities.

Performance Charlie is performing well in all his subjects other than Modern Languages, where he struggles with French. His best performances have been in Maths and Science, although he is good at Geography and History as well.

Issues Because he is keen to do well, Charlie can be competitive. This occasionally spills over into a lack of patience with others in the class. He asks a lot of questions, sometimes annoyingly so; he continuously demands the teacher’s reasons for choosing particular topics for class work.

Feedback

Four Profiles

Profiling a Target Audience for FeedbackThink about who a typical class member might be. Try making up your own profiles to help you decide how your feedback strategies could work and what learners will take from the feedback you provide.

Name

Gender

Age

Nationality

Family

Circumstances

Interests

Performance

Issues

Feedback

Four Profiles

Sample Subject Assignments

ScienceA report for science writing up an experiment that the teacher carried out while the class took notes. The report must include a labelled diagram of the apparatus used, a brief outline of what was being tested by carrying out the experiment, and a report on what happened. The report must conclude with a statement explaining what has been found out as a result of the experiment and what conclusions can therefore be drawn.

EnglishA short essay examining the range of feelings displayed by the protagonist of When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit, and how those feelings change during the course of the narrative.

Technology and DesignA product comparison report on two household lighting appliances used for a similar function, and one used for a different function; from a choice of: reading lamp, standard lamp, kitchen lighting, outside security lighting and ceiling light fitting. The comparison will be used to inform a proposal for a new design for a domestic light fitting for any of the chosen purposes.

GeographyA comparison of information on climate change and global warming from two websites provided by the teacher and one sourced by the learner. The comparison must provide arguments for and against accepting particular pieces of information.

MathsA calculation to determine the cost of tiling a kitchen of given dimensions. The work must show how the learner used the kitchen’s dimensions to calculate the final value, including any allowances made for cutting tiles and wastage.

CitizenshipA presentation on fair trade detailing the main issues and concerns, the costs and benefits and the effect on the various interest groups involved.

Feedback

Four Profiles

Sample Feedback Responses

1. This written work was a mess. You need to rewrite it in decent handwriting or word process it. There are too many careless spelling mistakes for me to correct. Check the words you don’t know how to spell and run a spellcheck before you hand this in again.

2. Why did you decide to write your answer as a short essay rather than as a series of diagrams with notes? Explain.

3. Well done! This is an effective piece of work. You have explained all the main points and included relevant details. Next time try to also include more evaluative comments that show why you came to the conclusions you did.

4. This work is nicely presented, but you have mostly used text from the sources with only short linking sentences between. It should be mainly your own responses, with brief supporting quotations from the sources.

5. Do you think there could be another way to get the same information across, but by using a different format such as pictures instead of words? What do you think would work best?

6. You haven’t addressed the learning objectives for this assignment. Please check them, make corrections and hand it in again next week.

7. SPaG! Check your work before you hand it in.

8. Did you choose the most useful websites to use? What was useful about them?

9. Next time, it will help to make your points effectively if you write your conclusion statements first and then, for each one, start a new sentence saying ‘This is because…’ and give the reason for each statement you make.

10. Good work. I particularly liked the way you chose the images to illustrate the account. This makes the whole thing easy to understand, because there’s a picture example given for everything you want to say.

11. Do you see how just by explaining each event with a beginning, middle and an end, it makes it clear what was going on?

12. Neat diagram. This has all the detail in it. Your decision to use a key to explain the symbols worked particularly well.

Feedback

Four Profiles

13. This was much better than your last piece of work. It shows that you have taken the time to present everything the way I asked you to. Keep working to this standard.

14. Which of the arguments did you believe? Why did they convince you?

15. You only forgot to do one small thing from the instructions: to keep a note of the URL you used as a source for information. I haven’t added it in for you because I thought you’d want to add the finishing touch yourself.

16. Why did you choose to only talk about what happened in the story, but not how the hero’s actions changed the course of events?

17. 27/30. What qualities were shown by the main protagonist in the story that caused you to see them as fair-minded and generous?

18. Right, you’ve made that technique work. Why is this method so much more effective than the way you were doing it before?

19. An insightful response. This shows that you’ve really thought about the issues and have arrived at a sensible and well-informed interpretation. Well done.

20. Unacceptable. Repeat and resubmit by Wednesday at the latest.

Feedback

Four Profiles

Outcomes

Profile used

Remarks

Work considered

Feedback selected for a good response

Remarks

Feedback selected for an indifferent response

Remarks

Feedback selected for a poor response

Remarks

Feedback

Four Profiles

Learner Reaction

1. The teacher always says the same thing. He’s always saying my work isn’t neat enough. He should try doing homework while you’re trying to babysit a toddler.

2. I’m so sick of these comments on my work. I’m supposed to explain everything I say, and I don’t know what the reasons are, because she never told us what they are.

3. I can’t be bothered doing what the teacher says to make my work better. If I was going to do it better, I’d have done it that way the first time.

4. I don’t see the point of what the teacher says on my essay. I thought I’d done all the things you were supposed to and I still got a bad mark.

5. Everything she says is just negative. There’s never anything right, only what’s wrong. I think she hates me.

6. I got a C anyway. That’s all right for me. I won’t have to listen to a lot of moaning about doing it differently, as long as I got a C.

7. I could do it better if I tried, but it’s just not worth the effort. I’ll never have to know about that stuff ever again, so there’s no point really.

8. She tries to be nice and say something good, but then ruins it by always having to say there’s something else you’ve forgotten.

9. I couldn’t care less.

10. I worked as hard as I could on that and it never makes any difference. In fact, it really made me feel like giving up. If the best I can do is still no good, what am I supposed to do to get better?

11. I’d say the teacher is okay. He’s trying to say I’m doing okay, but could still be doing better. I suppose that’s true, but I’m not really that bothered about Technology and Design.

12. It’s only ever her favourites that get good marks. It doesn’t matter what you do, the As are only for the cronies. I don’t stand a chance of getting a good mark.

13. It’s all right, I suppose. I can fix those things and resubmit it to get a better mark.

14. I was so stupid not to do a spellcheck before I handed that in.

15. Everyone just got the same comment back on their work. I don’t even understand what it means.

16. I get a bit bored of always having to do an evaluation at the end. What’s the point of it? All you do is say what was good and what you could do better next time, but you’ll never do exactly that same thing again.

17. I know the teacher is trying to help, but they’ve such a funny way of going about it.

Feedback

Four Profiles

18. I think that was a bit harsh. I did try – not hard, but I made a bit of an effort.

19. I was mostly pleased I did okay.

20. I got a better mark than the rest of my table, so I don’t really care what else the teacher says I should do to improve my work.

Feedback

Four Profiles

Learner Reaction

Profile used

Remarks

Work considered

Feedback selected for a good response

Remarks

Learner Reaction

Remarks

Feedback

Four Profiles

Feedback selected for a indifferent response

Remarks

Learner Reaction

Remarks

Feedback selected for a poor response

Remarks

Learner Reaction

Remarks

Using the examples recorded by the groups, wrap up this session by considering the following questions about feedback:

How often do you know as much detail about the learners in your classes as is contained in the profiles? Why did the profiled learner react in this way? Was it good feedback for them? Why (not)? How often is this feedback clearly useful advice that the learner will accept easily and use to improve future

work? Would it be useful to redraft or suggest an alternative form for the feedback?