When students receive critical feedback on their work or performance, "their gut reaction is to push back against that feedback, to try to defend themselves in some way, shape, or form," says Bill Ferriter, a science teacher at Salem Middle School in North Carolina and coauthor of Creating a Culture of Feedback.
That visceral reaction is a byproduct of the evaluative nature of schools, Ferriter contends. Most feedback that's given to kids is an assessment of some kind and provided by an authority figure, whether that's "a parent, a coach, or a teacher."
"We judge everything our students do in a quest for data, intervention, and accountability," he says, "and that's super unhealthy." As a result, when students are placed in a peer feedback situation, even if the input they get is constructive, "they're looking to get out of it as quickly as possible."
Observations, Not Evaluations?
Ferriter believes the best way to head off that "gut reaction" is to strip away any judgment attached to peer feedback. "Evaluative judgments shouldn't be passed between peers in a classroom," he states. In fact, the only time his students look for strengths and weaknesses in the feedback process is when they're comparing their own work to exemplars.
In his 6th grade classroom, Ferriter limits students to giving one another observations, instead of evaluations. Essentially, they provide feedback only on what they can physically see in a partner's work. "I encourage kids to [give an observation and] stop there," he explains. "Don't make a suggestion. Don't make an evaluation about whether that's a good or bad thing."
Ferriter uses "Austin's Butterfly" as a model, a video that shows how nonjudgmental peer critique helped a 1st grader improve a butterfly drawing to make it more scientifically accurate.
"When you say, 'Hey, I noticed that the butterfly's wings are rounded and yours are pointed,' there's no threat to anybody," he assures. That kind of observational feedback is "easy to receive, easy to give, and easy to act on."
This straightforward approach counteracts the social hierarchy in classrooms that can influence how feedback is given and received, explains Ferriter. In a traditional peer feedback setting, a struggling student may take feedback from an accomplished peer at face value, while a high-achieving student may "immediately dismiss" the feedback given from a struggling peer.
Ron Berger, chief academic officer at EL Education and creator of "Austin's Butterfly," applauds any method that "makes sure that kids feel safe and that [peer feedback] is a positive experience."
For a deeper level of peer critique or peer evaluation to be implemented, "there has to be a spirit of kindness, compassion, and inclusion so that the class doesn't feel like there's a hierarchy of who's important and who's not," says Berger.
"The culture of the classroom determines the quality of the feedback," he adds. "This isn't a strategy that you can just drop into a classroom if there's not a strong, respectful culture."
Be Kind, Specific, and Helpful
Providing parameters to deliver high-quality feedback can give students the initial grounding they need. Berger recommends three basic rules for peer critique, outlined in "Austin's Butterfly": be kind, specific, and helpful.
Kind
Students may "tighten up" if feedback is worded harshly, but they'll be more receptive to feedback that has a gentler edge, notes Berger. "Wording things kindly is not only the right thing to do, but it's a more effective way to do it."
Berger encourages teachers to be vigilant about overt—and subtle—diversions from kindness. Middle and high school students can be especially unkind through sarcasm, he observes. "They'll make a statement, but the tone of their voice or the roll of their eyes implies that it's insincere."
When you notice that happening, stop the class and point it out, advises Berger. "Say, 'Wait a minute. You just said you liked [so and so's] piece but the tone of your voice suggested something different, and that could be hurtful.'" The other kids will think, "Busted!", but it's important that the atmosphere stay safe, Berger maintains, and that students see their teacher reinforcing kind behaviors.
Sentence stems can also soften the way feedback is delivered. Berger recommends that students use "I" statements—"I don't understand why you did this … " versus "This is crazy." Or "I'm not sure I understand the opening of this piece … " versus "The opening to your piece is a total mess; it's confusing." Starting with "I" is "being more honest about your [comments], that it's your personal opinion," contends Berger. Whereas saying, "'Your story is just confusing' feels pejorative right away."
If teachers model "I" statements, as well as "asking questions rather than making judgments," such as "I'm not sure why you did this; can you explain it more?" then students will begin to replicate that kind of inquiry. By using "I" statements, "you gently nudge," Berger clarifies. "You don't make global statements and assume that you're right about them all."
Specific
The second rule of peer critique is that it has to be specific. A major challenge Berger notices is that kids tend to offer "global" feedback, such as, "I really liked your opening." That kind of positive statement is great, he admits, but "I have no idea what about the opening is working." Is it the first sentence? The hook? A metaphor? He suggests unpacking examples like that in front of the class "so students can see until it digs down into something they can grab and think about."
One reason students tend to provide generic feedback is because they don't always know what criteria to focus on. So feedback should home in on "any small part of the bigger whole that you're working in," says Berger. Before students can give each other feedback on metaphors or similes, for instance, they need to spend at least 25 minutes talking about metaphors and similes as a class, reviewing good and bad examples of each. Then, once you're confident that students grasp the lesson, they can find a partner and look for metaphors and similes in their work. "Are they there? Do you see opportunities for them? If they are there, are they strong ones?"
Students need that "rich and deep conversation" and plenty of practice to know how to give "thoughtful, specific feedback about one dimension of the work," says Berger.
Especially at the beginning of the process, it can help to circulate around the room, lean over kids' shoulders, and coach them to provide more specific feedback, says Starr Sackstein, an English teacher at Long Island City High School in New York and author of Peer Feedback in the Classroom (ASCD, 2017). "Sometimes they don't have the words, and you need to whittle it out of them. 'You said this was a good example; what made it a good example? How does it make the writing stronger?'"
Sackstein recommends "zeroing in on specificity and standards language." A strong piece of feedback might sound like, "You made a good point here, but the development is a little thin. Consider adding a piece of evidence from the text or write another sentence that further explains what you mean when you say …."
Again, providing targeted sentence stems can help students who are struggling to articulate that kind of depth, notes Sackstein. "When you anchor [stems] in an understanding of the skills that the students are trying to exemplify, that helps them with the language of where the feedback needs to be."
Helpful
The third and final rule of critique is that it has to be helpful. A kindergartener might offer kind and specific feedback, such as, "I really liked that you put a dog in your picture because I like dogs and I have a dog," but that's not helpful to the recipient, says Berger.
Often in middle and high school, "kids give critique just to sound clever in front of their peers, to show off how astute they can be in noticing details in the work," he says. They may have a sharp eye, "but it's not necessarily in service of what's most helpful to the author in taking her next step."
When students are given an opportunity to study models or exemplars of the work, they will be better equipped to provide helpful feedback. There's a tendency, however, to put a rubric out there without examining models first, observes Berger. He recommends leading a whole-class critique lesson, unpacking two or three models of what a good scientific report, geometric proof, or historical research paper looks like. In this exercise, you're not looking at what's wrong because you're not trying to improve the piece, he explains. Instead, you're "analyzing the dimensions of what's working," giving students a lens in which to work from.
"At that point, kids are like, I get this. I know exactly how to be helpful here because we just discussed what a good one is."
These critique sessions can work with students of all ages, adds Berger. "I do it with my graduate class at Harvard. We look at good pieces together and we look at the strengths in them that we can borrow for ourselves. Then separately we give each other individual feedback on how to move our pieces to the next step. Both kinds of critique are really important."
To reinforce what "helpful" feedback looks like in his science class, Ferriter often puts samples of student feedback statements on the board and has students break into groups, ranking the statements in order from most helpful to least. "It's a matter of providing examples upon examples upon examples," he confirms. The activity also helps them notice good sentence starters and phrases that they can use in their own work. "As students pick up the language of feedback, they get better at it over the course of the year."
The Heart and Brain
Taylor Meredith, an instructional coach at Kipling Elementary School in Deerfield, Illinois, streamlines peer feedback exchanges with what she calls the "heart and brain" strategy. The structure has been particularly effective for her 5th graders: They provide one comment on something that worked well in the piece (heart) and one comment on something to consider revising (brain). Each piece of feedback has to be specific and tied to the aim or learning objective.
For example, if the aim is "writers use evidence to support their reasons in argument pieces," then heart feedback might be, "I liked how you included specific statistics as evidence. It helped your argument seem strong." Brain feedback could be, "Maybe you could find a different piece of evidence to support your third reason. It was interesting but didn't completely fit with your reason."
To Meredith's surprise, students crave the brain feedback more than the "validation or recognition of something they've done well." They want to hear, "What are you going to say that will change the way I look at what I've just done?"
Ferriter suggests the "essential epilogue" to good feedback (a concept attributed to his coauthor, Paul Cancellieri) is asking kids to wrestle with, " 'What does this feedback say?' 'How do I apply it to my work?' and 'What changes do I need to make next?'"
A Well-Oiled Machine
Researcher John Hattie places educator feedback in the top 15 of 195 practices that affect student learning and achievement. But for feedback to be successful, Hattie argues that it has to be timely and directive. However, "the timely part is what teachers stumble with," notes Ferriter.
"There's no way [a teacher alone] can provide frequent, meaningful feedback to 120 kids on 4 assignments a week," he observes. But, "if I can train students to provide each other with meaningful feedback, then now I've got 30 partners in every class period. So the feedback is timelier."
In an end-of-year survey, Ferriter's students said they "loved" peer feedback for one simple reason: "When I get feedback from you, Mr. Ferriter, I have to wait weeks for it. When I get feedback from my peers, I can get it right away."
After the initial time spent practicing and modeling, the cycle will start to feed itself, says Berger. "Once you've taught students how to be really strong at peer critique—how to focus on one dimension of the work; how to be kind, specific, and helpful; how to push people the right amount—then kids will not only do it in formal critique sessions, but they'll start supporting each other's work all the time."
With the fear of judgment eliminated, "kids will be sitting at tables with other kids and [freely] leaning in to give critique. They'll do an inching-in kind of critique: 'Wow that's great, but do you see that part here? I'm not sure I understand that.'"
"That's what you want in classes, for it to become the habit by which kids work," concludes Berger. "As a teacher, you just don't have time to get to every kid. So you want that culture of critique to take root."
