What Collective Feedback Lessons Can Look Like

And why I believe they matter

In one of our recent solo Kicking the Copier pods, I reflected on why I’ve shifted to giving collective feedback to the entire class before having students individually encounter and reflect on theirs—a topic that also was centered in my conversation with Jennifer Gonzalez on The Cult of Pedagogy talking about systems of reflection in our classroom.

Several weeks into this school year, I’ll double-down even further: I believe this is one of the biggest changes I’ve made in my classroom in “Decade #2” of teaching when it comes to student learning. (Yes, I’ve fully settled into a “Decade #2” mindset along with a well-receded hairline and a plethora of Dad jokes. It’s a good life, really!)

Given how important I believe this shift has been, I want to offer a post that walks through each step of what these lessons tend to look like, including slide decks from our most recent English 10 “collective feedback lesson” with students (full slide deck available here):

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Aesop’s “The Crow and the Pitcher” Fable is Core to our Classroom Culture

Step 1: Setting a Purpose

At the beginning of the school year, we introduce our classroom core beliefs one at a time with a visual/analogy for each. With our core belief around growth—“We commit to and celebrate growth as active, purposeful learners.”—we use Aesop’s fable of “The Crow and the Pitcher.”

The basic summary of the fable: a crow is thirsty and in a place barren of water, but they come across a pitcher. However, their beak cannot extend to the water level within the pitch—so they are still unable to drink anything. The solution? The crow finds pebbles lying around and one at a time, through its own hard work and determination, the crow gets the water level to rise so that it can finally drink from the pitcher.

“This is what learning is,” I tell them. “It has to be active, not passive.”

We return to this story on collective feedback days, then, along with three main talking points that I come back to again and again throughout the lesson:

1. The goal of school is to learn new things—not getting gold stars for things you already have mastered

2. The best thing about growth? It’s available to every single student, no matter where you are.

3. The path to getting better goes through spending time with what you’ve done—so that’s what we’re going to do.

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distribution of scores from the mid-unit practice attempt

Step 2: Transparent Data Sharing

This part is not always the fun part—but I believe it is an important part: providing students overall results of where everyone is at.

Of course, the messaging while you do this matters a great deal—so here are some examples of points I make while sharing the slide pictured above, which provided students the results from their practice attempt at our unit’s priority skill on a 1-4 grading scale.

• “This was practice and we still have much more to learn on this skill—as a teacher I expect these scores to be low at this point!”

• “Don’t be discouraged if you got a 1.0/4.0 or a 2.0/4.0—you are in the majority! And a lot of students who were right where you are now last year made huge strides over the next two weeks.”

• “Our goal? To get across that green line—and also for those already past it, including those two 4.0/4.0’s, to keep getting better. “

And then? “Today is 100% about that getting better, so let’s dive in!”

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Example “feedback trend” slide for growth

Step 3: Collective Growth Priorities

This is one of the non-negotiables, I’d argue, if you are trying to do this type of lesson: centering trends collectively with students before they see their own individual feedback.

In our classroom, this means students taking notes on 3-5 different growth areas that I noticed again and again while grading—each paired with an anonymous student sample that reflects that need for growth.

Why I think this is effective and important?

• This becomes a really important “checklist” tool for students before their next attempt at this skill—and I definitely remind them of that purpose while we’re doing it!

• It also makes transparent what I am seeing and also looking for while grading and giving feedback, and takes away some of the ambiguity that is far too common in the grading process

• As students are moving through this, they are discussing and anticipating with each other about which growth priority they believe applies to their own before they’ve seen their individual feedback

Oh, and my favorite thing from the teacher perspective? This shifts how I grade and give feedback towards how I am going to present and communicate that feedback collectively—and I 100% believe this makes me better as a teacher as a result.

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the slide deck to introduce “peer gallery walk grading”

Step 4: Application/Anticipation Activities

Out of all the steps in this post, this is probably the most “optional”—but on the other hand I find it to be one of my favorite steps of these lessons.

There are different things you can do to help students apply the feedback notes they just took and anticipate on what they’ll find on their own attempts, but my go-to is having students use the rubric to grade anonymous student samples.

This typically means having anonymous samples posted around the room and having students go through in pairs to read and score as accurately as possible including the growth area they noticed for each. It’s a great way for them to “be the teacher” and to understand what thinking and reasoning goes behind each score. (Note: it also is a nice opportunity to bring in an out-of-seat, higher-energy stage into the lesson.)

From there, we return to whole-class debrief to explain each score and give them a chance to reflect once more on what they anticipate will be their feedback…

Which they finally get to look at in Step 5.

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Step 5: Individual Feedback Processing

At this point, students are typically very motivated to see their own feedback. (I have literally had students trying to sneak into their Chromebooks to peak at feedback in advance during these lessons.)

Still, I think there has to be a process around this, too.

For us, that means having students record their individual feedback in their own words, including what they plan to prioritize on their next attempt. On practice attempts, we typically do this in their spiral notebook with me reading/signing off—and on summative assessments this is where the “Learning Story” formal document comes into play in our classroom.

The most important part, though, regardless of your process or system?

Creating a dedicated space at the end of this lesson for students to interact with their individual feedback, ask clarifying questions, and hold focus as long as possible around growth.

“You have your pebbles,” I tell them, referring back to Aesop’s fable. “Now it’s time for you to toss them in the pitcher.”

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results after going through our collective feedback lesson!

Why I Believe This Matters

Well, the first thing: this is without question the most direct path to growth I’ve seen happen in the classroom.

In the image above, you can see how much growth happened just two weeks after the initial practice attempt on the same skill—which is one of the coolest things to share with a classroom community! (And also to share out to parents and families to brag on what the students have achieved!)

More importantly, however, this type of lesson can help change the classroom culture toward students having a better, more substantive understanding of what their growth actually means.

It’s not about the numbers, which are just a means of communicating skills.

Too often in school the only thing we get to is looking at the numbers, though, and then we slam down the pedal and speed forward to the next skill, the next unit, etc.

Does creating and moving through a lesson like this mean slowing down?

Yes.

Is it worth it.

Yes.