Descriptive feedback: student voice in K-5 classrooms

Abstract

In this article, the author argues the imperative of critical dialogue between learners and teachers on learners’ experiences in the classroom. This dialogical process is called “descriptive feedback”—feedback given by students to teachers on their (students’) experiences as learners. Drawing on the literature on feedback, descriptive feedback, and student voice, the author contends that descriptive feedback dialogues are not only rich sources of understanding of learning, teaching, and school, but offer a creative counter to a relentless, often dehumanizing, atmosphere of test prep and “coverage.” The results of this study point to the creation of space where students become teachers, teachers become learners, learners become learners of teaching, and both collaborate on creating curriculum. Within this space students develop a heightened sense of their own agency, and acquire new language with which to talk about learning. Teachers develop a curiosity about students’ point of view and come to trust in their capacity to contribute to both curricular content and pedagogical process.