What I Learned In School Today: Feedback needs to be frequent, meaningful, and targeted.
Feedback from teachers to parents on student performance needs to be frequent, meaningful, and targeted to the specific student. Social media provides an effective communication method the class or school level, but what about individual kids?
I love the idea of elementary school digital portfolios. Creating a hub where students and teachers can centralize their work encourages students to refine their metacognition and learn to reflect upon their own work and learning. Furthermore, providing parent access to a student’s digital portfolio makes the communication between teacher, student, and parents frequent and focused. All three parties can see student work and gain a deeper understanding of strengths, needs, and what is happening in the classroom.
In addition to enhancing parent-teacher-student communication, digital portfolios allow all members of the triad to focus on the process of learning and not just the product. Instead of judging performance in math on a test score, everyone involved can see all the work that went into that topic and the growth that occurred from the beginning to the end of the unit. Instead of only seeing the final piece of an art project, everyone can reflect back upon the progress made in each class as a sculpture took form or painting came to view. Digital portfolios allow for immediate feedback to support meaningful learning and are a necessary step in parent-teacher-student communication.