“Wax-on, wax off,” the famous explicit instruction began the Karate Kid’s training towards karate mastery. In the film, The Karate Kid, Mr Miyagi, a martial arts master, guides Daniel, his teenage protégé, to mastery through instruction and feedback.
This feedback ensures Daniel’s karate moves become almost instinctive, enabling him to transfer his skills to new situations. The power of Mr Miyagi’s training and feedback came to the fore in the final scenes of the movie. Daniel is forced to draw upon all of his skill to face his nemesis in a high-stakes karate tournament. Explicit feedback that developed his ‘wax-on, wax-off’ move pays off!
So what strategies can help every educator be a master teacher when it comes to providing feedback? Just as Mr Miyagi provided for Daniel, high-quality instruction and specific, regular, timely feedback are crucial to develop our learners to achieve mastery. In his book, Mastery: The Keys to Success and Long-Term Fulfilment, George Leonard wrote, “… if you intend to take the journey of mastery, the best thing you can do is to arrange for first-rate instruction. For mastering most skills, there’s nothing better than being in the hands of a master teacher.”
Recommendations for mastery-orientated feedback
CAST, the home of UDL, recommends the following key steps towards feedback that supports mastery:
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- Impart feedback that encourages perseverance, focuses on the development of efficacy and self-awareness, and encourages the use of specific supports and strategies in the face of challenge
- Provide feedback that emphasises effort, improvement, and achieving a standard rather than on relative performance
- Offer feedback that is frequent, timely, and specific
- Ensure feedback is substantive and informative rather than comparative or competitive
- Include feedback that models how to incorporate evaluation, including identifying patterns of errors and wrong answers, into positive strategies for future success
There are more practical suggestions on reducing barriers to learning on the CUDA website.