RISE Up and Provide Meaningful Feedback to Students: RISE Model (Part 1)

Feedback is an essential element to learning, but why do many of us struggle with providing valuable feedback to improve student performance? I've struggled with this too. I recently read an article by Troy Hicks of Edutopia titled Make It Count: Providing Feedback as Formative Assessment, which provided me with valuable strategies to use to provide meaningful feedback to my students. We often think an Edmodo badge, a Google comment saying "Good Job," or a foil sticker communicates feedback effectively. Although, they are wonderful forms of feedback, how do we help our students grow?

In Troy Hick's article, he mentioned the RISE Model for  meaningful feedback and self evaluation. This model was developed by Emily Wray and was developed with Bloom's Taxonomy in mind.  Check out the different levels of her model below:

What does RISE stand for?

R - Reflect 

When we reflect, we use lower level thinking skills to make connections, agreements, or disagreements with the student work. A simple "I like how you described _____ because...." or "I agree / disagree with ___ because..." would be an example of Reflection.

I - Inquire

As we inquire, we begin using our understanding and analyzing skills. Instead of recalling information about student's work, we are looking for meaningful dialog. We are "seeking information and providing ideas through questioning." For example, we may ask students to think about another strategy, perspective, or way of doing things. 

S - Suggest 

When we suggest, we are asking students to analyze and evaluate their work with deeper meaning to make improvements to the work. For example, suggestions provide students with strategies to develop a deeper understanding and higher quality product.

E - Elevate

When we elevate feedback, we are inspiring students to develop higher levels of creativity and problem-solving skills. When I think of the Elevate level, I think of Carol Dweck's work on the Growth Mindset, to develop continual growth and expansion of ideas. As businesses constantly refine products, why aren't we giving students an opportunity to refine their work? Just a thought!

Conclusion:

Over the next few posts, I am going to provide you with meaningful and realistic tools to put this model into action! We will explore some tools that you know and others that you don't! Stay tuned!