MONITORING AND FEEDBACK IN EDUCATION

I think monitoring and feedback is an essential feature for keeping students engaged and motivated. Too often I think we see lessons that begin we a dynamic initiative, have deep representations but fall short on the overall feedback to students.
I teach in a Rudolf Steiner School. In our teaching practice we have worked with the indications from Dr. Steiner in relation to the duration and rhythm of the lesson programme. Steiner places great emphasis on the three fold order, which directly relates to the way the day and each lesson unfolds in a Rudolf Steiner school. This approach allows for a certain amount of flexibility. Students from years 1 through to 12 arrive at school and receive integrated teaching in what we call the main lesson, from approximately 9-11 am with appropriate short breaks. There is one teacher in the class teaching a specific subject, and that subject alone will be taught for 3-4 weeks, with each days succeeding work linking back to the day before. This encourages real focus, and has even become a familiar rhythm, known in medical and academic circles since the 1960's, under the title 'peak performance rhythm'.
Here it is acknowledged that the body core and in particular the head are better supplied with blood than the metabolic and limb system and that this is reversed in the second performance peak when the body core or metabolic activity comes into focus and later the limb system. For this reason Steiner speaks of the need to focus morning lessons on subjects which primarily address the head, and require students to sit still so that 'head activity' can occur in an uninterrupted and concentrated way. Towards midday and afternoon, in contrast lesson focus should be on subjects which address the will and the limbs.
Steiner spoke of establishing these rhythms so that the teacher would have sufficient peace and time to really impart something to the students, and to enter into intensive learning processes with them. Here deep learning can occur.
I work in the area of high school as a specialist art teacher and a class guardian of a specific year. Here particular subjects can be enriched from a variety of angles, where one or other specialist is involved in a main lesson, requiring intense supervision and optimum pupil/teacher relationship. Teacher training is a continuous process of great importance. We actively encourage teachers to regularly attend classes for further training and support the process of teachers observing other teachers' lessons.
When we teach a 3 week main lesson we provide monitoring and feedback throughout the lesson and then we 'revisit' the lesson one week hence. This is where the students receive their main lesson book back which has been marked and commented upon, but not graded. The reason for this is a matter we have devoted much attention to. We have come to the conclusion that a grade, say A, B, or C; or a mark out of 10, say 5, 7, or 9 does not have have a clear meaning; it does not give students feedback on what they did well or badly; it may even lead to an adversarial and competitive atmosphere. In a recent speech, Peter Elbow, director of the writing program at the University of Massachusetts, expressed strong feelings against grading, stating "it's the most intellectually dull thing we do". At our school we initially chose to eliminate grades altogether and opt for narrative evaluations .... but then there's the board of studies grading requirements which is directly linked to government funding.
The Premier of N.S.W, Morris Iemma, has recently become involved in a debate that calls for a report card overhaul. Critics claim that school reports have become voluminous - folders full of colourful examples of work, lists of performance criteria and more besides - to the point where the document no longer informs.Arguements from this group include the criticism that assessments are wordy, diffuse and, for most parents, incomprehensible. It is becoming apparent that a lot of teachers have a different view, however, based on a professional judgement about what, in the absence of all other factors, parents included, is best for the students. Reports are complicated and many-faceted because reducing an assessment to a single grade, ranged from A to E, as Mr Iemma wants, is a dangerous oversimplification. Graded as a failure, a child may become despondent or overwhelmed.
What we have decided to do at our school is apply both approaches. When we return books to students we provide comments that relate to individual student performance. When we issue reports at the end of each semester we provide both comments and grades. We have received favourable feedback from both students and parents and will continue to monitor this procedure, in conjunction with regular parent/teacher information evenings.
Recent newspaper articles. Read more..

Grading students and schools-Opinion: Sydney Morning Herald 6th June 2006. Retrieved 19.8.2006
Report card reshuffle-By Bruce McDougall Sunday Telegraph. 1st August 2006. Retrieved 19.8.2006