Reflection on Feedback--Marzano

Note to Brenda: I responded to one of your posts from March or April (an early one) and I think you might find my input helpful. I didn't know how to get individual messages to people so my apologies to everyone else.

By the time I got to the section in Marzano about feedback, I had already decided that this was a book I should read every year in August as I was finalizing the plans for the next school year. True, I had read it before. True, I already use some of the strategies in my classes. However, I also realized that I had forgotten some of the really important elements as far as my students learning is involved. One of the things I have become lax about was providing really valuable feedback so that it becomes a learning tool. On page 96 there was a statement that particularly impressed me--that feedback should tell students what they are doing right as well as what they need to change. I think we so often get caught up in having to create scores so that a grade is generated that we forget how important feedback is as a learning tool. Ideas like this are why I think Marzano should be a yearly read.