Giving feedback

Feedback is the product of monitoring and on-going feedback is necessary for students to develop their knowledge and skills. A simple ‘good’, ‘well done’, ‘needs work’ or ‘shows lack of understanding’ provides little help to a student in terms of identifying strengths, weaknesses or showing how their work can be improved.

Students need feedback on their learning as soon as possible: it shouldn’t have to wait until they complete an assignment or an exam. By encouraging  students to participate in class discussions, asking them closed and open ended questions and listening to their responses, setting them tasks that engage them in higher level thinking,  and then monitoring their progress (see "Monitoring learning") you can identify strengths and gaps in their understanding. This information provides the basis for targeted feedback (given verbally) which you can give students immediately. Constructive feedback:

• identifies a student’s strengths
• highlights gaps in a student’s knowledge and/or skills
• suggests  ways in which the student can approach problems
• probes and extends what a student already knows
• encourages students to develop self-assessment skills
• challenges students’ ideas and conceptions
• sends the message that learning is an active process

 

As you can see then, giving feedback is not just to provide judgement on students’ work – it is to provide them with insight. Constructive and specific feedback guides students in how to judge their own progress and ultimately to become fully self-directed learners.

Type of Feedback	Examples of how you might give feedback
Positive feedback to let  students know they are doing well	I liked the way you explained how…’;  ‘That’s a very novel way of approaching the problem. Would you like to share it with the class?;  ‘A good suggestion. I hadn’t thought of that.’
Constructive feedback to alert students to gaps in their understanding or to deficiencies in their skills	I'm not clear about why you think… Could you explain how you reached that conclusion?’;  ‘That’s a good attempt at explaining the process but you have forgotten to include… Can you rephrase your answer including…?’ 'Have you thought about…?'
Encourage students to give one another constructive feedback	Initially, you may like to provide students with checklists for giving feedback on one another’s work: , that is provide them with a model (essentially, you would probably ask them to judge whether the task criteria had been met).

 

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