I suspect that one of the changes in technique in recent years that has had the biggest impact on student achievement is a move away from ‘grading’ a piece of work to providing feedback – a key component of which is a target for how to improve.
The adoption of this practice has (should have?) led to us questioning at what point in the process we are marking / assessing – for this to have the biggest impact students need to have a change to reflect and act of their target quickly.
The problem is, as this model has scaled and managers look for evidence, increasingly what’s being looked for is evidence of a target – next time you do this you should.
But recently I’ve been wondering if sometimes we wouldn’t be better off just saying ‘ wow. Well done. You aced it’. If there’s a time and a place for targets and feedback isn’t there a time and a place for celebrating success unconditionally.
Or am I getting soft in my old age? ;0)