What does feedback look like in practice?

According to Hattie and Timperley (2007), feedback information should be focused on the specific task required to be completed, should emphasise the nature of the strategic processes underpinning the work done and should focus students’ attention to self-evaluate and to self-monitor their own work in order to develop self-regulation skills. Personal or self-directed feedback (such as praises) should be used with caution, as they tend to be counterproductive and do not contain information about how to improve the task itself.

Feedback can take the form of written text or oral comments, but could also be an audio or video file with relevant information. Feedback that is dialogic tends to be more useful as it allows both the student and teacher to unpack their own interpretations of the feedback to make it more understandable and usable.

Besides the teacher as feedback giver, students’ should take an active role in the feedback process by (a) interpreting and understanding the quality of good work or the success criteria; (b) comparing the current or actual level of performance with the evidence or the criteria for success (usually in the form of a rubric); and (c) using assessment information to improve their own learning (through peer and self-feedback). Students can also indicate to the teacher what they need in terms of the type of feedback that is more useful for them.

Good feedback requires understanding your students’ learning approaches and to plan and design assessment tasks that help to gather high-quality information about students’ learning. It should help students to improve their work and foster better learning.