Giving learners feedback

This activity is designed to get participants thinking about the importance of giving feedback to learners in a way that helps them to progress. Within it, participants will create their own personal action plan for improving their practice. 

Guidance

Explain to participants that you are about to show them a short video which includes six top tips for effective communication with people with learning disabilities. Ask them to consider while they are watching if they have used any of these of approaches with learners they support.

Watch the video communicating with people with learning disabilities

Ask participants to move into pairs and ask them to talk about the adaptations they make when communicating with learners they support. Were some of these featured in the video? Are they using other approaches that were not covered? What could they try in order to improve the way in which they communicate with the learners they support?

Ask participants to share the outcomes of their paired discussions with the wider group.

Explain you are now going to focus in on a specific context for communication: giving feedback to learners.

Ask participants to:

• discuss in small groups the different ways they provide feedback to learners on their learning
• consider exactly what they say and how they say it to learners
• identify one or more ways they could improve their approach, following on from the earlier exercise on communicating with learners.

Introduce the PowerPoint presentation Giving learners feedback.

Use Slide 2 to cover the basic ‘Dos and Don’ts’ of giving feedback. You could ask participants to add their own suggestions.

Use Slide 3 to introduce the notion that they are going to identify an area of practice to improve on. Run through the examples of areas to work on covered by the slide and give participants the chance to test out with you the validity of a different area of focus.

Use Slide 4 to demonstrate how participants can create a simple action plan with an area of focus and some planned actions they can try to help improve their practice. Get participants to complete their own action plan template on a personal area for improvement. They could share these in a pair or with the wider group.

You could run a future session in which you review the action plans and discuss what has worked and what hasn’t, and what else participants could try.

Key learning points for debriefing

• The comprehension skills of learners with good verbal skills are often over-estimated and, conversely, the comprehension skills of learners with poor speech and articulation are often under-estimated. 
• Cognitive impairment, a low reading age, developmental delay etc. do not mean that the young person should be treated as if they were a child. In FE settings, teaching and support staff must ensure the language used is age-appropriate (e.g. student or learner – not pupil; “well done” – not “good boy”). Learners should be treated with respect and dignity and as young adults (18+) or young people on the verge of adulthood (16+).
• Young people with learning difficulties often require the use of simple vocabulary and for people around them to talk slowly and clearly to allow for adequate processing time. This does not mean that should be spoken to as if they were children.   
• Individualised feedback and constructive praise support learning and the planning of next steps. For example, explaining to a learner “you did that really well because you…and next time you could….” will be more effective than just saying “well done” or “good job”. 
• Checking learner understanding of learning intentions will increase learner engagement.
• When giving feedback to learners, it is important to allow them, wherever possible, to comment and reflect on their own progress and next steps as part of the process. Making learner feedback a transactional rather than one-way process supports the development of learners’ self-reliance and independence.
• It can also be appropriate for an LSA to seek learner feedback on the support they are offering. This can lead to a better quality of support and help the learner develop their autonomy.

You can also draw on the topic learning points in your summing up.