Feedback

What is the purpose of feedback?

Effective feedback is designed to determine a learner's level of understanding and skill development in order to plan the next steps towards achieving the learning intentions or goals. It is guided by the success criteria linked to these learning intentions.

Essential elements of effective feedback:

• Goal/criteria referenced

Information becomes feedback for students if, and only if, teachers provide information that tells students whether they are on track or need to change course. This specifically relates to the work of success criteria.

• Tangible and transparent

Any useful feedback involves not only a clear goal, but also tangible steps related to achieving the goal.

• Actionable

Effective feedback is concrete, specific, and useful; it provides actionable information.

• User-friendly

Expert teachers avoid overloading students with too much or too technical information in feedback. They provide one important thing they noticed that, if changed, can achieve noticeable improvement.

• Timely

Good feedback is timely to have a positive effect on the learning being undertaken.

• Ongoing

Regular feedback to students, delivered in a timely fashion, increases the likelihood of student improvement and achievement in a variety of ways across a period of time.

• Consistent

Students can only adjust their performance positively if the feedback provided to them is accurate, and can be trusted. Teachers need to agree on standards that are being applied to student work ensuring consistency through the use of criteria.

Black and Wiliam (2009) define five key strategies for formative assessment or feedback:

1. clarifying, sharing and understanding learning intentions and success criteria

2. engineering classroom activities that elicit evidence of learning

3. providing feedback that moves students forward

4. activating students as instructional resources for one another

5. activating students as the owners of their own learning.