Feedback tips

Feedback Tips

Click on the + on each tip to learn more.

Tip 2

Tip 1

Tip 3

Tip 6

Tip 4

Tip 5

Reward students for actioning feedback

Provide learners with a list of feedback comments

Help learners want feedback

Let learners have feedback comments first

Provide a choice of feedback mode

Give at least some feedback straight away

Tip 8

Tip 12

Tip 11

Tip 9

Tip 7

Tip 10

Link feedback directly to LOs

Ask learners to respond selectively

Make feedback a dialogue

Make use of technology

Get learners to look back positively

Don’t miss out on noticing the difference

Tip 14

Tip 17

Tip 18

Tip 15

Tip 16

Tip 13

Take care with the important words

Use feedback in rehearsal contexts

Get learners giving feedback, not just receiving it.

Don't provide feedback to everyone

Use other students

Provide most feedback at the beginning.

Set aside time for students to come and speak to you about their feedback after they receive it. Alternatively, ask them to send you an email after they have received your feedback, focusing on their feelings. In particular, this might help you to understand what emotional impact your feedback is having on individual learners. It can be useful to give them a menu of words and phrases to underline or ring, perhaps including: ‘exhilarated’, ‘very pleased’, ‘miserable’, ‘shocked’, ‘surprised’, ‘encouraged’, ‘disappointed’, ‘helped’, ‘daunted’, ‘relieved’, and others.

For example, ask them to revisit their work and identify what were their most successful parts of the assignment on the basis of having now read your feedback. Sometimes learners are so busy reading and feeling depressed by the negative comments that they fail to see that there are positive aspects too.

Investigate how learning can be advanced in small steps using a ‘scaffolding’ approach. This means providing lots of support in the early stages which can then be progressively removed as learners become more confident in their own abilities.

Spend time and energy helping learners to understand the importance of feedback and the value of spending some time after receiving work back to learn from the experience. Most learners don’t do this at the moment, concentrating principally on the mark. Allocate time in class for students to read their feedback, discuss with peers and ask questions. Share with students your own experience of receiving and learning from feedback. Highlight research on the impact of feedback on student progress.

Consider providing opportunities for resubmissions of work as part of a planned programme. Learners often feel they could do better work once they have seen the formative feedback and would like the chance to have another go. Particularly at the early stages of a programme, consider offering them the chance to use formative feedback productively. Feedback often involves a change of orientation, not just the remediation of errors.

Provide learners with a list of feedback comments given to a similar assignment or essay prior to them submitting their own. You can then ask learners, for example, in a large-group session, to attempt to work out what sort of marks an essay with these kinds of comments might be awarded. This helps them to see the links between feedback comments and levels of achievement, and can encourage them to be more receptive to constructive but critical comments on their own future work.

Students do not always appreciate the importance of feedback when it comes from a lecturer, or it is not the feedback they want. Ask students from more advanced years to either record short videos of them reflecting on what they learnt from the feedback / things they wish they had paid attention to, or link students up through a buddy or mentor scheme to help navigate receiving and acting on feedback.

Ensure that the language you use when giving feedback to learners avoids destructive criticism of the person rather than the work being assessed. Boud (1995) talks about the disadvantages of using ‘final language’, that is, language that is judgemental to the point of leaving learners nowhere to go. Words like ‘appalling’, ‘disastrous’ and ‘incompetent’ fall into this area, but so also do words like ‘incomparable’ and ‘unimprovable’ if they don’t also help outstanding learners to develop ipsatively – i.e. build yet further on their already high achievements.

help students understand what to do with their feedback by asking them to create a checklist of areas to focus on in the next assessment. Ask students to submit their checklist with their next assessment and consider awarding marks for actioning feedback.

Make use of the speed and power of technology by setting formative tests on your Virtual Learning Environment or other familiar platform. Learners appreciate the chance to find out how they are doing, and attempt tests several times in an environment where no one else is watching how they do. They may be more willing to maximize the benefits of learning through mistakes when their errors can be made in the comfort of privacy, and when they can get quick feedback on these before they have built them into their work. Of course, many digital assessment systems allow you to monitor what is going on across a cohort, enabling you to concentrate your energies either on learners who are repeatedly doing badly or those who are not engaging at all in the activity.

Link feedback directly to the achievement of intended learning outcomes. Explore ways in which formative assessment can be made integral to learning. Too often assessment is bolted on, but the more we can constructively align (Biggs and Tang, 2011) assignments with planned learning outcomes and the curriculum taught, the more learners are likely to perceive them as authentic and worth bothering with. Giving learners feedback specifically on the level of their achievement of learning outcomes helps them to develop the habit of making better use of the learning outcomes as targets, as they continue to study.

Explore the possibilities of giving learners at least some feedback at the time they hand in their work for marking. For example, a page or two of comments responding to ‘frequently occurring problems’ with the assignment they are handing in, or illustrative details along the lines ‘A good answer would include…’ can give learners some useful feedback while their work on the assignment is still fresh in their minds, and can keep them going until they receive the detailed and individual feedback on their own attempts in due course. Giving ‘generic’ feedback at the time of submission in this way can also reduce the time it takes to mark learners’ work, as there is then no need to repeat on script after script the matters that have already been addressed by the generic feedback, and tutors can concentrate their time and energy on responding to the individual learner’s work, and giving specific feedback on their strengths and weaknesses.

Comment positively where you can see that learners have incorporated action resulting from your advice given on their previous assignment. This will encourage them to see the learning and assessment processes as continuous.

Learners are much more likely to study feedback properly if it in a format they find easier to access. Consider offering students a choice in how they receive feedback, offering recorded audio comments, brief written comments, or the opportunity for students to ask specific questions about their mark for particular areas of the criteria.

Phil Race suggests asking students to submit a mark for their own work, based on the assessment criteria provided. If the mark is within 5 percentage points of the mark he awards, the higher mark stands. Only students who are outside of the 5% receive feedback. Race explains this approach supports developing assessment literacy in students and reduces the workload in providing feedback by focusing time and energy only on those who need it to understand their own level of performance or competence.

Ask learners to respond selectively to your feedback on their assignments. This can, for example, include asking them to complete sentences such as:‘The part of the feedback that puzzled me most was…’ ‘The comment that rang most true for me was…’ ‘I don’t get what you mean when you say…’ ‘I would welcome some advice on…’.

Think about ways of getting learners to give each other formative feedback. The act of giving feedback often causes deeper thinking than just receiving feedback. Involve learners in their own and each other’s assessment. Reflection is not a luxury; it is the best means available to help them really get inside the criteria and understand the often hidden ‘rules of the game’ of higher education. In particular, asking learners to review each other’s draft material prior to submission can be really helpful for all learners, but particularly those who lack confidence about what kinds of things are expected of them.

Let learners have feedback comments on their assignments prior to them receiving the actual mark. Encourage them to use the feedback comments to estimate what kind of mark they will receive. This can then be used as the basis of an individual or group dialogue on how marks or grades are worked out.