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semester showed that although students greatly benefited from their collaborative
lesson plan analysis, they would have rather collaboratively developed their own
lesson plans.
Depending upon which course preservice and in-service teacher education stu-
dents were taking, they learned about and applied either the Universal Design for
Learning (UDL; Crawford, 2008) or Rich Instruction Model (RIM; Hartman &
Sternberg, 1993) to the development of lesson plans. In the undergraduate
Adolescent Learning and Development course, students applied the UDL to devel-
oping a single lesson plan; in the graduate version of that course students applied
UDL to developing a 5-day unit. Graduate students in the Psychology of Learning
and Teaching course applied the RIM to the development of a single lesson plan. In
all courses each student was responsible for developing a lesson plan, but worked
collaboratively in a group to help each other apply what they learned in our course
to refine and improve their lesson plan designs.
Classes met in the Multimedia Lab for guidance as they uploaded the first
drafts of their lesson plans in the end of October. Beginning then and contin-
uing in November students were required to provide members of their subject
content-based groups (e.g., science group) with feedback. Three reasons for the
feedback component of the assignment, half the project grade, were to help their
group members (peers) develop effective unit/lesson plans; to help students self-
evaluate and improve their own unit/lesson plans; and to learn and practice applying
research-based principles of effective feedback.
Students were given the following research-based feedback guidelines for mak-
ing comments on each other's lesson plans (Bruner, 1966; Hartman, 2009):
•
Teach learners to reflect on their performance and give themselves feedback. Ask
about their perceptions of what and how well they are doing.
•
Present feedback in a useful way for learners.
•
Time feedback carefully for maximum impact, for example, when they can use it
to correct their mistakes or otherwise improve their performance.
•
Ensure learners are in an appropriate frame of mind for receiving feedback, for
example, not when upset or anxious.
•
Translate feedback into the learner's mode or way of thinking to maximize its
potential use.
•
Provide some encouraging feedback as well as criticism. If learners feel some
areas of strength and degree of success, they are more likely to be motivated to
improve their performance than if they feel that everything they do is wrong.
•
Avoid overloading learners with criticism. We all have limited capacities for tak-
ing in information, especially criticism, so be selective and focus on the most
important points rather than a comprehensive account of all flaws at once. Too
much negative feedback can overwhelm learners and decrease their motivation to
improve their performance.
•
Structure feedback in a way that will encourage independent learning so that
learners do not become dependent upon your feedback. For example, instead of
telling the correct answer, pose a question which will lead learners to think in
