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Step 7
This step helps you to consider how you will feedback information to the learner and to the others in the institution and beyond it who may have an interest in the progress of the learners.
Recording
This may mean recording comments on an Individual Education Plan (IEP) for those learners who are deemed to need School Action Plus support. The Local authority may well provide both a template as well as support, in the form of training, for the staff to do this.
Records may be made on a Provision Map that will chart an individual's progress across the year group and across elements of the course.
Teachers may wish to give instant verbal feedback in a positive manner that will reinforce that individual's progress.
Feedback from learners
Learners themselves may make a learning diary or log, where they comment on what they have found difficult, enjoyable or otherwise in their learning. The lindividual's peers may also be encouraged to comment about each other's progress in the form of "two stars and a wish" in other words, commenting on two things an individual did well and suggesting one way of improving the performance. Feed back from the learner may be in the simple form of thumbs up for that they feel they have understood or thumbs down for that which they have found difficult. Individuals may be encouraged to submit their work in the form of a traffic light system where they put their work in a pile of red - I did not do well; a pile of amber - some was fine, some was not; or green - I did not find any difficulties with this work.
Formal records
Individual teachers may enter marks or grades in a mark book; some may wish to transfer the data to an ICT system. Whichever way individuals choose, it should help them detect patterns of achievement. These patterns can be determined both for the individual learners and also for the teachers. Where there are areas of weakness, for groups or classes or sets of learners, teachers can focus their teaching on these areas of weakness.
Individual grades may be entered in preparation for a summative assessment and to give the learner an idea of where he or she needs to focus the attention for a forthcoming summative unit in a modular course.
All of this information can then be used to feedback to a number of parties: the learners themselves, the teacher's line manangers, the parents, even those who collect data on a national scale. This feedback may be written or spoken, but the audience for which the feedback is prepared must be taken into consideration.
Summary
In practice, a number of methods are chosen, dependent upon the context of the assessment, its purpose and the progress of the individual learner. However, the nature and purpose of this feedback need to be agreed across the institution as a whole and, where necessary, the appropriate data recorded for others to use and analyse. The nature of the audience should also be considered before a definite tone is used in the feedback report.