Planning for Detailed Feedback
Giving Effective Feedback in Detailed Feedback
Use Feedback Forward to give students effective feedback on assessments like essays, lab reports, projects and presentations.
No matter the discipline, effective feedback has certain characteristics: it is specific, actionable and timely, focused on improvement, and encourages self-assessment. Effective feedback gives students insight into their strengths and weaknesses, so that they can reflect on their performance and work on areas that need improvement.
When giving effective feedback in Detailed Feedback you should:
1. Be Specific
Use comment boxes to provide specific written feedback that references language from the indicator text. Offer students concrete examples as much as possible. Be sure to toggle on “Display the indicator text within feedback to student” so students can see the indicator text with your comments.
2. Focus on Improvement
Keep the focus of your feedback on what can be improved, rather than solely pointing out errors. Giving constructive feedback allows students to recognize opportunities to move forward with their work. Use the Overall Feedback box to indicate that students should revise and resubmit their work and suggest next steps with comments, guiding questions, examples or resources.
3. Encourage Self-Assessment
Share assignment expectations and review the rubric in Detailed Feedback in depth with your students, before they need to start working. Sharing the rubric in advance helps students to understand criteria for success and create high quality work, giving them the opportunity to continually self-assess and reflect. If time allows, conference with students as they work, guiding them through self-assessing their progress on specific criteria you identify.
4. Encourage a Growth Mindset
Frame your feedback as a tool for growth rather than only evaluation: assessment for and as learning1. Incorporate specific examples where the student has demonstrated progress or improvement from previous work to help build their growth mindsets. Conferencing with students as they work to share these areas of improvement will also build their capacity for growth.
5. Make it Actionable
Use the comment boxes for each criterion to give students actionable suggestions on how to improve their work. Break down your feedback into specific steps or strategies to ensure students have a clear understanding of what action to take. Include links to examples, instructional videos, or other additional resources to help guide their next steps.
6. Be Timely
Use Detailed Feedback to provide timely, high-quality feedback to students as soon as possible. Ensure that students receive feedback before they move on to another assignment requiring the same skills. Taking the time to design an effective rubric in Detailed Feedback will allow you to give effective feedback in a more timely manner.
What does this look like in a classroom?
Need examples of what effective feedback should look like in your classroom? An opportunity to practice writing better feedback yourself? Check out the specific resource for your subject area below.
Better Feedback in the Math Classroom
Better Feedback in the Science Classroom
Better Feedback in the English Classroom
Better Feedback in the Social Science Classroom
1Learn more about the three approaches to classroom assessment: Earl (2003).