As the clutches of Covid-19 become ever more dire and school systems face the possibility of extended closures this coming fall, the need to effectively provide students with feedback that moves growth forward has become urgent. In flawed remote learning environments that deny teachers and students so many of the advantages of an in-person classroom experience, assigning grades to students is an irresponsible practice that is inaccurate at best and inequitable at worst. The clearest way to assess content mastery from a distance is to engage in continuous feedback conversations with students as we all jointly grapple with prioritizing what students need to learn, and how they should ideally show us that knowledge. What can we do to create meaningful feedback experiences for kids? 

Make Targets Visible

A teacher in one of my instructional leadership classes often said, “We can’t expect students to hit a target they can’t see.” That resonated with me, and I started noticing how many times students receive grades on work they really did not understand how to complete. Whether teaching remotely or in person, students need to know what the teacher expects. Begin and conclude each virtual class with the goal clearly written and verbalized, and do it in plain language rather than jargon. A student will respond more productively to a learning outcome that states, “I can identify the main idea of a story” rather than, “The student will be able to identify the central theme within a complex text.” The former is geared toward student rather than adult understanding, and as our primary clientele, we should be making clarity for kids the priority. When students have clear targets, they engage in far more productive conversations about their performance and receive feedback with the overall frame in place for the “why” behind their work.

Empower Students

Students typically perform better on assignments when they work together to break down expectations. When teachers dismiss the process of peer review, they make it more difficult for students to develop a clear understanding of how to meet the learning target. Peer review can be a powerful classroom tool, but if left to their own devices, students without adult guidance might look at a classmate’s work and hand it back with little other feedback than “Looks good to me.” If we work at the back end of lesson planning to create clear guidelines for what students should look for in one another’s work, they will not only review their peers’ work more effectively; they will also develop a deep-seated understanding of what mastering an assignment means in terms of what skills they acquire, rather than worrying about the more shallow concern of what a teacher wants to see. Whenever I assign writing, I include a detailed rubric that not only describes the desired categories of mastery, but that also moves along a qualitative spectrum. For example, characterizing a paper as a “not yet” is more telling than labeling it with a “D” letter grade. Providing language on a rubric that is not tied to a letter or number also provides students with encouragement toward a goal and reinforces the concept that it is okay for work to be considered in progress rather than polished at the draft stage. No matter how rubrics are implemented, it is the conversations they inspire both among students and between teachers and students that are important.

Providing tools for student discourse throughout peer review is also a valuable practice. Before the class writes or critiques their drafts, provide samples of student work from previous years and encourage small group discussions about where each piece falls on the rubric as groups come to a final agreement. This activity works in any setting, whether in person or in virtual break-out rooms. The simple process of discussing the rubric aids student learning so that when the time comes for them to do the assignment and comment upon one another’s work, they have the confidence to give one another quality feedback. That process alone is far more valuable than any grade a teacher could ever assign.

Use Technology Wisely

As we learned this past spring, simply having the technology to teach students remotely by no means ensures success. Instead, using available options judiciously is far more important than assuming that platforms can do the work for us. English department chair Ryan Acosta-Fox of Northwood High School in Silver Spring, Maryland, enhances his digital feedback to students while still retaining the vital element of human interaction. He says, “The best gradeless strategy I’ve developed during distance learning was providing video/verbal comments on practice essay writing. I used Screencastify so kids could follow along as I spoke.”

This practice shows the value of providing comments on student work verbally even in an asynchronous setting, which is particularly helpful for students who cannot always meet with the teacher remotely during a specific time. As much as we tout the need to have synchronous face time with students, the idea that the teacher must drive all feedback conversations in real time does not respond equitably to student-centered needs. Instead, the feedback we provide must be as flexible as possible, and should be based on taking advantage of technological innovation rather than letting digital learning become a teaching strategy unto itself.

Keep Dialogue Open

One issue that existed with issuing grades even before the pandemic was the fact that once a deadline hit at the end of a marking period, feedback would come to an abrupt halt as report cards drew a line that could no longer be crossed. In reality, learning should not end when a unit of study reaches its conclusion; rather, feedback should occur in a continuous loop. In a virtual setting, office hours can be used to great advantage if student voice is gathered to determine possible topics of interest. For example, giving students a two-minute survey to fill out about what they would like to explore further with their learning, and also providing an open-ended response option for them to share their own ideas, can make an online meeting between the teacher and students more purposeful and useful. When teachers offer feedback in a bubble without consulting students about what they value, they hit walls more often than not. Prioritizing voice and keeping dialogue open is the best way to make sure feedback promotes growth, especially at a distance.

The broken status quo has always existed; the pandemic simply shines a harsher light on the systems we need to change. Without question, virtual learning will continue at least in some form this fall, and we need to change the way we determine whether students have met learning outcomes before it is too late to serve the students who desperately need our help to keep growing academically. Depending on the school system and its policies, continuing to assess student progress with grades may continue to be a core practice. In the course of a pandemic, making huge systemic changes might not be realistic. Regardless of whether grades are given, if we strengthen our feedback in virtual settings, not only will students benefit from our efforts; we will also be better positioned to question the efficacy of grades once we stabilize and return to brick-and-mortar settings.

Miriam Plotinsky is a learning and achievement specialist with Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland, where she has worked for nearly 20 years as an English teacher, staff developer, and department chair. She is a National Board–certified teacher with additional certification in education administration and supervision. In addition to her work as a specialist, she is a freelance education writer who can be found on Twitter @MirPloMCPS.