The Use of Learner-Centered Feedback Design to Improve Oral Response for Conversational Questions
by Muhd Ammar Bin Abdul Aziz
Faezah Noorahman
Noorazlina Noordin
Sharifah Noraini Aron
Nurul Huda Jasmani
(Edgefield Secondary School)
Context - Learning from Past Experiences
The team identified oral conversation as a key area for improvement among learners. Practicing for this component is challenging due to the broad range of themes that are tested. Learners typically encounter problems as they are not confident on how to respond or begin the conversation.
Traditionally, feedback is given after the practice, which does not particularly encourage feedback uptake by students. Learners also shared that they do not know how to improve based on the feedback given by teachers.
Prior to this, the team attempted to build learner’s feedback literacy by introducing rubrics into the feedback process. However, the team found that learner's literacy level and feedback engagement doesn’t improve much with the mere introduction of rubrics.
The Project’s Foundations
The team took inspiration from Dr Jessica To’s (2021) study titled ‘Using learner-centered feedback design to promote students’ engagement with feedback’. Although the study was conducted on a group of adult learners, the team felt that there are key components within the study that could be beneficial to the secondary school context.
With this, the team embarked on a research project which focuses on the use of learner-centered feedback design and learner autonomy to improve the quality of learner response to conversational questions. As this project takes reference from a research study in higher education, the team adapted the original feedback design in accordance with the school context and seeks to achieve the following objectives;
- To understand if such a learner-centered assessment design will also be beneficial to secondary school learners.
- To understand if learner motivation and behaviour towards taking action on feedback are improved when given autonomy in choosing the areas of feedback to work on.
Conceptualising the Project
Reflecting on the team’s various professional development courses to increase competency as oral testers, the team decided to adapt the processes found within the research study to suit a secondary school learner profile and began conceptualizing the solution. To address the challenges the team encountered in the years prior to this, the team reconsidered the approach taken. Instead of focusing on content building and exposure, the team decided to shift the focus towards building oral response competency and increasing learner feedback literacy to help them identify areas that they can improve on. The team also sought to increase learners’ self-efficacy and foster learner autonomy.
This is so as the team tried implementing rubrics as a way to solve this problem in 2018-2019, however the results were not as encouraging as the team had underestimated the importance of learner feedback literacy. Although the rubrics was seen as a positive step forward, the team realized that introducing rubrics without first increasing the learners’ feedback literacy would limit the effectiveness of the feedback process. The experience from the previous attempt proved valuable in constructing an effective and meaningful action plan that would positively affect the learners.
This new approach allows improvements to be made incrementally by incorporating feedback from peers and teachers before actual assessment. This also encourages feedback uptake. The team believes that learners would build a strong foundation of oral response competency that will help them in responding to questions regardless of themes as they understand the success criteria for a coherent response.
Tailoring the Approach
The team overcame the challenge of adapting adult learner feedback pedagogy to secondary learner feedback pedagogy by leveraging on the professional development sessions on feedback. The team gained insightful knowledge from dialogues and sharings on feedback pedagogy by experts. Key to which are the 4 principles of feedback pedagogy;
- Meaningful task design
- Judicious use of peer feedback and/ or self-feedback
- Students’ proactivity in feedback interaction
- Psychologically safe feedback environment
These principles form the basis of the approach and allowed the team to factor in key considerations of feedback literacy into the action plan which will make the 4-stage feedback process a more meaningful and impactful experience for the learners.
To complement our existing lessons on current affair topics and content building, the team sought to first foster students’ understanding of success criteria. By incorporating peer feedback and learner autonomy into the learning process, the team took an innovative step towards increasing learners’ efficacy when responding to oral conversation questions.
The innovation consists of four broad stages;
Stage 1 - Learners will learn an oral response format to understand how to construct their response and achieve coherence. This involves the introduction of discourse markers to link their responses in a coherent manner. Learner will then complete an individual recording task.
Stage 2 – Learners will be introduced to a set of rubrics for reference. Learners will access recorded exemplars of mixed-abilities for reference and standardization. This will build learners’ feedback literacy by making them understand the various success criteria. Learners will then provide feedback on their peers’ individual recording task. Below is an example of a translated peer feedback form completed by learner;
Stage 3 - Learners will receive the peer-feedback and engage in discussion with their peer to analyse the peer-feedback. Based on the peer-feedback received, learners will conduct a self-assessment and choose an area(s) for growth that they wish to assess and focus their improvement on. Below is an example of a translated self-assessment form completed by learner;
Example B – Completed Self-Assessment Form
Stage 4 - Learners will make an improved recording and submit for an evaluative teacher assessment. Teacher will focus on learner’s chosen area(s) for growth to determine learner’s progress in improving the chosen area(s) based on the self-assessment.
The Rationale of The 4-Stage Approach
In developing the tailored 4-stage feedback process, the team took into consideration learners’ profile. The feedback process has to be one that is not over-complicated whilst maintaining its efficacy. Not only that, the team has to ensure that the feedback process would be something viable for teachers to conduct in daily school context. The team was mindful in not creating a process that would be too time-consuming that would not be viable on a daily context. The idea to keep the process straightforward and viable is so that the team can adapt and scale the approach to other levels and possibly other language units should the outcome prove effective.
The 4-stage approach empowers learners to exercise autonomy in improving themselves as well as increase their feedback literacy, as they would be able to make meaning from the various feedback channels. Learners would be encouraged to take ownership of their growth as the quality of feedback increases. Compared to the traditional teacher’s comment and marks as feedback, this approach ensures learners clearly understand the areas that they require extra effort and focus in.
The Outcome of The Project
Overall, the team found that the learner’s response toward this approach was encouraging and it showed more impact as compared to the previous attempt of merely introducing rubrics. The outcome showed that learners are able to display a better understanding of feedback and are now more empowered to enact improvements to accelerate their growth in the oral conversation competency component. Learners have benefitted from the multiple feedback received from their peers and teachers.
The team observed that learners were able to have a clearer understanding of the success criteria and are more conscious of the specific area for growth. The recorded exemplars and standardization process enabled learners to have a clear distinction between a quality response and an average response. This better grasp of the rubrics and its success criteria allowed learners to better pinpoint their weaknesses and make for a more targeted improvement.
The team found that empowering learners with autonomy to work on their areas for improvement enabled them to experience a more meaningful feedback process. 59% stated that being able to indicate aspects that they require feedback on improved their learning. 55% indicated that their performance would improve when given autonomy to choose aspects of their work that they require feedback on. The self-reflection in Stage 3 really helped learners exercise their learner autonomy to ensure deep learning.
Team’s Hopes & Reflection
All in all, the team is delighted with the outcome of this project and has continued to strive further in 2022 by carrying on the process in order to obtain more insights that could help the team to explore wider application of this feedback process into feedback pedagogy for language learning and possibly other subjects within the secondary school curriculum. Throughout this collaborative learning process, the team gained the following key insights;
- Understanding key principles in driving a specific pedagogical approach
- Discussing and exchanging ideas through dialogue
- Tailoring specific approach to target group
- Empowering learners with learner-centered approach
- Understanding learner uptake of feedback and how their attitudes shape their learning
- Feeding forward effective feedback that enhances learners’ growth