Appreciation from Afghanistan

Here is a lovely email received recently which we've shared with the children...

Hello Mr Clarke,

I am the Commanding Officer of the New Zealand Defence contingent serving in Bamian, Afghanistan. 

A few days ago we received xmas cards that had been made by students from your school.  Unfortunately these were significantly delayed through the mail system. 

The cards are fanastic.  So much effort has obviously gone into them by the students.  It was a wonderful and much appreciated gesture that you, your staff and the children made.  Please accept our gratitude and pass on our thanks to all concerned;  the staff and children.  We were humbled by such thoughtfulness.

All the very best to your school for 2012.

Kind regards 

Brett Wellington 
Lieutenant Colonel 
NZ PRT 
BAMIAN
AFGHANISTAN

What is feedback and how does it help learning?

Did you know that great feedback is one of the things that can really make a difference to student learning? Auckland University researchers have found that quality feedback is one of the factors that can potentially have the largest impact on student learning. They believe that ‘feedback' includes telling students:

1. what they have done well (positive reinforcement), and 
2. what they need to do to improve (corrective work, targets etc), 
3. but it also includes clarifying goals.

When you get quality feedback you can make improvements. Teachers give feedback all the time as part of their job. One good example of teachers giving our students feedback is when they give class certificates out at each assembly (photo to the right of this week's recipients). Students can also give feedback to others to improve their learning. 


Did you know that by merely using the word 'because' you can make the feedback more effective? For example: Your writing is much better than before because...


How can you give someone feedback that will help their learning?

What is feedback? How does it help learning?

Write your thoughts as comments to this blog post. Discuss them with your class and come up with some ideas for how your class can use feedback to improve learning. The seniors are going to get some practise at giving feedback by helping with the decision for who may get the leadership cup at the end of the year.

Sources:

• Article about the research
• Auckland University Faculty of Education web site