Findings from the class observation data suggested there was more of a prevalence from teachers to give evaluative feedback, which I am guilty of at times too. It's that waffly kind of stuff like well done, good on you. Feedback that is much more worthwhile for students and gives them something tangible to improve on is descriptive feedback i.e. I see you have used a variety of sentence starters to grab attention);
I am mindful of being specific with feedback in my facilitation role when working with teachers and something I learned at Toastmasters years ago never lets me down. CRC, Commend, Recommend and Compliment.
Within my own teaching practice, when I'm working alongside students, I need to tighten up a bit on giving bite size chunks of descriptive feedback that is specific to our learning intentions. Jess Henare, the Deputy Principal at Kawakawa Primary School gave a good presentation at one of the Kiakohekohe Cluster PLG's last year. The image below is from her resource and here's a link to her full slide deck. Note to self: make time to revisit this when planning my next lessons.
Feedback is so important. Students need to know specifically what they have done that made their work 'good' and what their next steps are to make it even 'better'. Telling a student they have done a great job, doesn't really prepare them to ensure they can do a great job again next time. I too, try to give specific feedback, but quite often in a busy classroom, this becomes a bit waffly (as you mentioned).
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