Goal Directed

We’ve all heard the saying ‘practice makes perfect’ and ‘the more feedback the better’. But is this the full picture? And if it is, how on earth do we balance our students' need for practice with the constraints of the course length and the amount of time it takes us to provide tons of feedback?

Whilst it’s clear that both practice and feedback are two essential parts of an effective learning cycle, we need to explore how we can do this in the most productive way possible.

Let’s start with some simple definitions:

DELIBERATE PRACTICE

Continued learning is influenced by the amount of time a student spends in deliberate practice, rather than in general practice (Ericsson, Krampe, & Tescher- Romer, 2003).
The first feature of deliberate practice involves working towards specific goals, monitoring our performance, adjusting behaviour to reach the goal and then setting a new, challenging goal
Students pay more attention to learning that is relevant to specific goals. Rothkopf and Billington (1979)

For students to work towards a goal, the goal needs to be clearly communicated. Generally, this is done in the form of a learning outcome that tells the student what they need to be able to do. It should be specific and measurable.

Verb

Object

Learning Outcome

For example, our novice pianist work towards a learning outcome of: “To able to play the scale of F”. This tells the student specifically what they should be able to do, and it is observable and measurable.

Because students will pay more attention to the learning that aligns with goals, you need to make sure the goals are appropriate to the learning you want them to achieve. It’s important that goals include aspects of higher order skills and thinking, so that students recognize that they need to pay attention to these. For example, this might include learning outcomes around critical thinking, team work, creativity.

Provide a rubric

Taking our musical learning outcome, it may tell the student what they need to be able to do, However, it doesn’t tell them how well they should be able to do it. There’s a big difference in ability between someone who can stumble their way through a scale, slowly, using one finger and with errors, compared to someone who can play a scale fluently and accurately with both hands at pace.

Rubrics that set performance criteria, help students understand the level of performance that is needed. Goodrich Andrade (2001) found that sharing a rubric with students along with their assignment led to better outcomes in terms of quality of work produced and that students could recognize what good work looks like.

IDENTIFY AN APPROPRIATE LEVEL OF CHALLENGE

ACCUMULATING PRACTICE

Strategies to Consider

Build opportunities for deliberate practice

Be more explicit about your goals in your course materials
Use a rubric to specify and communicate performance criteria
Give examples or models of target performance and contrast these with poor examples. It can be particularly helpful to annotate model or poor papers to highlight what they do well or poorly, or how they could be improved

Identify an appropriate level of challenge

Conduct a prior knowledge assessment to target an appropriate challenge level
Build scaffolding into assignments

Plan for accumulating practice

Build in multiple opportunities for practice
Set expectations about the amount, type and level of practice students need to complete to master the skills or knowledge required
Reﬁne your goals and performance criteria as the course progresses

Strategies to Consider

Provide targeted feedback that explains how their performance measures against the criteria and what they need to do to improve future performance.

Prioritize your feedback

Don’t overwhelm and demotivate your students with too much feedback. Pick out the most salient points for where they are in their development

Balance strengths and weaknesses in your feedback

Remember students may not be aware of the progress they are making, so it’s important to give positive reinforcement, as well as direction on where they can improve.

Look for patterns of errors in student work

This can allow you to give feedback to the group, rather than at an individual level. It might also prompt you to see if you had an expert blind spot when assessing their prior knowledge.

Provide real - time feedback at the group level.

By using effective questioning in a group or lecture, with clickers or ‘post it’ notes to collect student answers, you can quickly give group level feedback and address common misunderstandings.

Incorporate peer feedback:

Having students review their peers work and give feedback can help them become better at spotting good work and diagnosing their own weaknesses. Remember to set clear guidelines on both the criteria and how to give constructive feedback.

Provide feedback at a time and frequency that supports the learning goal

Generally having frequent opportunities to give feedback is beneficial as it allows students time to adjust their performance. This is especially useful when you build in multiple practice opportunities
Encourage reflection and ask students to explicitly state how they have used feedback in their next draft or assignment

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Goal	The outcome we want the student to achieve. Goals should be student-centred, specific and measurable. You might hear them referred to as learning objectives or learning outcomes.
Practice	Any activity in which students engage their knowledge or skills (for example, creating an argument, solving a problem, or writing a paper).
Feedback	The information we give students about their performance, which helps them adapt their future behaviour.