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Intermediate School District 917

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Effective Feedback

Effective Feedback

Adapted from ASCD and Classroom Instruction that Works

Effective feedback helps students see what they know and what they need to keep working on. Learning gains come from acting on, rather than receiving feedback.

Directs attention to the intended learning, pointing out strengths and offering specific

  • For feedback to be effective, students must have a clear understanding of the learning target and be able to see the connection between the activity and the intended learning.

    Pointing out strengths is called success feedback.Success feedback may identify what the learner did correctly, describe a high-quality feature of the work, or point out the effective use of a strategy or process.

    Example: "The strongest part of your solution is … ." 

    Guidance is also called intervention feedback. Intervention feedback generally identifies a correction, describes a feature needing work, points out a problem with a strategy or process, offers a reminder, makes a specific suggestion, or asks a question.

    Example, "The drawing you made didn't seem to help solve the problem. Try using the tree diagram we learned about yesterday."

  • To ensure students are practicing perfectly, successful educators intervene as soon as possible to correct mistakes and misconceptions.

  • When student work does not demonstrate at least partial understanding of a concept or process, feedback is not usually effective. Feedback can only build on learning; if the learning isn't there, the feedback isn't going to move it forward.

    If students don't understand the task but try it anyway, and then receive feedback they don't understand, they can come to believe they are incapable of succeeding. One simple clue that a student's work is not ready for feedback is that you can't find any legitimate success feedback to offer. When the work doesn't demonstrate any understanding, don't give feedback—reteach instead.

  • When teachers provide students with more guidance than they need, feedback doesn't deepen the learning because students don't need to think. 

  • How much corrective feedback can each student reasonably be expected to act on in a given time? Too much corrective feedback at one time can cause a student to shut down, guaranteeing that no further learning will take place. In such cases, consider letting go of the urge to provide all correctives necessary to make the work perfect and instead provide as much guidance as the student can reasonably act on.