Comparison of the importance of feedback in mathematics lessons in on-line and stationary learning

Abstract

Feedback is one of the pillars of formative assessment. It is a comment (conveyed in various forms) to the work done. Thanks to it, both students and teachers obtain information that allows them to direct their further work. Instead of giving the student a summative assessment (in the form of a grade), the teacher can formulate a formative assessment in the form of feedback. In order to provide the student with good feedback, the teacher should emphasize what the student did well, which needs to be corrected, give tips on how to correct mistakes and shortcomings, and indicate directions for further work.

In teaching math, feedback is very helpful. Students making mistakes often do not understand what they are and do not know how to correct them. Also, when the student is unable to solve a given task, he often does not know how to look for clues to solve the problem. Thanks to the feedback, the student receives this information. On the other hand, the teacher, while conducting the lesson, finds out whether the problem he has explained has been understood, or whether he has to explain it again in a different way. It is essential for the effective teaching of mathematics.

As a result of the covid pandemic, most schools introduced on-line teaching. Teachers were forced to use remote learning tools, whether they knew them before or not (then they had to learn them quickly). Due to the new situation faced by teachers and students, the role of feedback in teaching, in particular in teaching mathematics, may have changed. The response to this is the study presented below, which compares the importance of feedback from mathematics lessons to on-line and stationary (classroom) learning.