TYPES OF FEEDBACK Donald Freeman has identified the following three types of feedback:
• Directive
• Alternative
• Non-directive
They respectively address the following questions:
Directive: What do I teach?
Alternative: How do I teach?
Non-directive: Why do I teach the way I do?
Activity 1(15 min)
Objective: to introduce Ss with types of feedback
Ss that their recommendations for supervisors on giving
feedback can be subdivided into three broad categories identified by Donald Freeman:
1. In Directive feedback teachers are informed about their mistakes and told what to do.
Teachers could be challenged in problematic areas of their teaching.
2.In Alternative feedback teachers can be asked questions that would make them consider
alternative practices.
3.In Non-directive feedback teachers are invited to analyses and conceptualize their own
teaching beliefs and practices and the supervisor’s role is to facilitate this process.
A feedback session is normally structured in the following way: Opening up teacher’s feelings about the lesson (What happened in the lesson? How did you feel about it?)
Rationalization and conceptualization (Why did you teach the way you taught?)
Considering future action (What would you do differently next time?)
Supportive feedback is essentially non-judgmental. The supervisor’s task is not to pass
judgment on teacher’s practices qualifying them either as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ but to learn from
observation and provide professional support to teachers. Before an observation session
observer/supervisor and teacher should agree on the focus of observation and feedback.
Activity 2 Practicing giving feedback
Objective: to provide Ss with the experience of giving feedback as a basis for further reflection and conclusions.
Time: 45 min
Materials: video lesson
Procedure: Distribute sample feedback written in paper for reading an learning.
Put Ss into pairs. In each pair ask Ss playing the role of Observer to give feedback to a T playing the role of Teacher
Play the video .
Summary
Time: 10 min
Emphasise the following:
Teachers should be guided by clear assessment criteria when marking students’ work
and students should know what these criteria are;
It is more useful for students to get feedback from a teacher rather than a marked piece of writing; Feedback teachers provide should be constructive and specific, without general
comments which can be applied to any text, and serve as action points for improving students’ writing skills.
Home task give feedback to any teacher in your college or university.