The Power of Visual Feedback and Student Agency

Although this blog post's purpose is to highlight how visual feedback and student agency help learners grow in their learning, I would like to add that this is something that can be done in any grade.

At the beginning of the Rhythmic Gymnastics unit of inquiry, I shared with G5 students what was the success criteria and what was going to be their summative assessment.

Learners used their previous knowledge and newly learned gymnastics skills to inquire into what they needed to do to create a floor routine.

They taught themselves basic ways of using rhythmic gymnastics equipment, such as a ball, a ribbon, or a hoop, watched different rhythmic gymnastics videos to get inspired and inquired onto the best ways to combine a specific gymnastic skill such a roll, balance, leap or jump, with the equipment they chose to use.

Throughout the unit, gymnasts reflected on their own practice by completing exit tickets and forms and thinking of the use of their time while working independently and with others. They also reflected on how engaged they were in the unit.

During the whole unit, I gave constant feedback to learners. Sometimes I would just give them quick tips, or ideas on how to make a sequence of movements or how to transition from one movement to the next one. Others I filmed them while performing and shared my thoughts with them.

My TA filmed each group of gymnasts as the rest of the class kept on practicing. I used those clips on the following lesson to confer group by group.

Visual feedback is powerful. Students watched themselves performing, we looked at the quality of the skills and talked about how to improve those. Using the success criteria we thought together about their routines. Some of the learners realized then that they forgot to add a leap, or that their use of the space was very limited, and so on.

I spent the whole lesson watching those clips with learners, group by group and felt that they got very meaningful feedback that they would apply right away.

What pleased me most, is that when I was working with a single group, the rest of the students were very engaged in their task, practicing over and over and trying to get better at their skills and their overall routine.

Today, students reflected on their work and added their thoughts in this grid:

Ms. Michelle Class1 and 2
Mr. Garrett's Class
Ms. Lou's Class1 and 2

Wednesday and Thursday are their final performances.
Can't wait to see them!
We will film every group and share it so parents and the community can also see students in action.