7. Setting Objectives and Providing Feedback 

Setting objectives can provide students with a direction for their learning. Goals should not be too specific; they should be easily adaptable to students' own objectives. Research shows that feedback generally produces positive results. Teachers can never give too much; however, they should manage the form that feedback takes.

Applications:

• Set a core goal for a unit, and then encourage students to personalize that goal by identifying areas of interest to them. Questions like "I want to know" and "I want to know more about . . ." get students thinking about their interests and actively involved in the goal-setting process. 
  
• Use contracts to outline the specific goals that students must attain and the grade they will receive if they meet those goals. 
•  Make sure feedback is corrective in nature; tell students how they did in relation to specific levels of knowledge. Rubrics are a great way to do this.
  
• Keep feedback timely and specific. 
  

• Encourage students to lead feedback sessions.
  

Technology Integration Ideas:

• Have students blog about their personal goals for a unit or activity and reflect when done.
• Create digital rubrics and checklists so students know exactly what is expected of them.
• Have students give peer feedback using Edmodo or Wikis
• Use the feedback/annotation tool in Edmodo to give students digital feedback on their work.
• Create checklists for large projects to help students meet objectives. (You can use Google Forms to create a checklist to embed on your website or in Edmodo).
• Upload work to VoiceThread and leave comments.
• Embed audio feedback into a student's Word document or PowerPoint.
  
• Use the editing feature with student work in Microsoft Word.
  
• Have students create KWHL charts using this free iPad App.
• Use the quiz feature in Edmodo to do a pre-test.