Good Job! Evaluative Feedback and Expectations

Teachers know that expectations have significant impacts on student learning. But as teachers, are we aware of how our everyday feedback conveys our expectations? 

My socialization + desire to show my students love, meant that my early feedback was almost always evaluative. I was rewarding, and approving, or sometimes negating, but it always sounded like this: 

“Good job!”

“Great!”

“Excellent!” 

“Not quite, but great try!!”

What I didn’t even begin to understand was that this type of teacher talk could actually serve to lower the expectations of some of my students, and increase stereotype threat in my classroom. If I tell a student the effort that they made was good when in fact it was mediocre or led to an incorrect answer, the kindness I meant to portray can actually be experienced as a lowering of expectations. If I add unconscious bias to this, the potential exists that I’m providing evaluative feedback to SOME students more frequently than others, a difference that will be felt even as it’s not necessarily named or understood. 

In an article for Teaching Tolerance Magazine, award-winning educator Chris Avery, is paraphrased describing the difference between the statements, “You only have a B.” and “You got a B! I’m so proud of you.”

Think about those two statements. Which one do you like more? Which one are you more likely to say? If you’re like me, the second statement feels good. It’s something I want to say to a child. It’s effusive and praising and celebratory. But, it’s limiting. Avery points out that the second statement is deleterious in that it makes a “B” the threshold, while the first statement is actually expansive. “You only have a B” implies that the student can do better. Our teacher talk conveys our expectations. 

Sometimes, it will be important and necessary to validate my students simply for existing. We might identify the pandemic as one of those times. But even then, we can let students know that where they are today is not the end by guiding them in reflection. “You only have a B right now. It’s hard to focus, and you might be feeling tired. Let’s think together about the specific places where mistakes kept you from getting an A, and keep moving forward.” 

Classroom language liberates.