3 Things to Remember about Feedback

Good feedback contains information a student can use.

That means,

• first, that the student has to be able to hear and understand it. A student can't hear something that's beyond his comprehension, nor can a student hear something if she's not listening or if she feels like it's useless to listen. 
• The most useful feedback focuses on the qualities of student work or the processes or strategies used to do the work. 
• Feedback that draws students' attention to their self-regulation strategies or their abilities as learners is potent if students hear it in a way that makes them realize they will get results by expending effort and attention.

Effective descriptive feedback focuses on the

• ntended learning, identifies specific strengths, points to areas needing improvement, 
• suggests a route of action students can take to close the gap between where they are now and where they need to be, 
• takes into account the amount of corrective feedback the learner can act on at one time, and models the kind of thinking students will engage in when they self-assess.
• These are a few examples of descriptive feedback: 
• You have interpreted the bars on this graph correctly, but you need to make sure the marks on the x and y-axes are placed at equal intervals.
• The good stories we have been reading have a beginning, a middle, and an end. I see that your story has a beginning and a middle, just like those good stories do. Can you draw and write an ending?
• You have described the similarities between _____ and _____ clearly, and you have identified key differences. Work on illustrating those differences with concrete examples from the text.