Incorporating Feedback into Teaching

𝑻𝒉𝒆𝒚 𝒉𝒊𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒈𝒐𝒂𝒍. 𝑪𝒆𝒍𝒆𝒃𝒓𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒅. 𝑴𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒅 𝒐𝒏. 𝑻𝒉𝒆𝒏 𝒓𝒆𝒑𝒆𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒅 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒂𝒎𝒆 𝒎𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒌𝒆𝒔 𝒐𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒏𝒆𝒙𝒕 𝒑𝒓𝒐𝒋𝒆𝒄𝒕. Sound familiar? A team closed a major deal. Leadership congratulated them. Everyone moved on to the next quarter. No one asked: “What made this work? What would we do differently?” Three months later, they tried to replicate the success — couldn’t. Because no one had captured what actually drove the win. McKinsey found that organizations with structured learning processes are 2.5× more likely to sustain performance, yet most skip the debrief and wonder why progress doesn’t stick. 𝘊𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘶𝘰𝘶𝘴 𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘪𝘴𝘯’t 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘥𝘦𝘳 — 𝘪𝘵’𝘴 𝘳𝘦𝘧𝘭𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘴𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘦𝘳. 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑳𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝑳𝒐𝒐𝒑 High-performing teams don’t just execute. They learn, capture, and apply. 1. Execute → Deliver the outcome 2. Reflect → Ask: What worked (and why)? What didn’t (facts, not blame)? What will we do differently next time? 3. Capture → Store lessons where people actually use them (not slides no one opens) 4. Apply → Embed learnings into the next cycle Most teams stop at Step 1. The best close the loop. 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑹𝒉𝒚𝒕𝒉𝒎 𝒐𝒇 𝑰𝒎𝒑𝒓𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕 Improvement isn’t a project. It’s a practice. Daily: 5-min huddles → “What’s working? What’s stuck?” Weekly: 15-min retros → “What did we learn this week?” Quarterly: Strategic debriefs → “What patterns are emerging?” If reflection only happens when things go wrong, you’re learning too late. 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐨𝐧 𝐌𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐬 ❌ Celebrating wins without decoding success ❌ Repeating mistakes because no one reflected ❌ Treating improvement as a one-off project ❌ No feedback loops — teams flying blind 𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐓𝐞𝐚𝐦𝐬 𝐃𝐨: ✓ Debrief every outcome — success and failure ✓ Make reflection part of weekly rhythm ✓ Capture insights in living systems, not cluttered docs ✓ Apply relentlessly 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝒉𝒂𝒓𝒅 𝒕𝒓𝒖𝒕𝒉: If you’re not getting better, you’re getting beaten. The fastest teams aren’t the busiest — they’re the most reflective. Reflect: → When did you last debrief a success to understand what made it work? → Do you have a weekly rhythm for learning — or only during crises? 𝘊𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘶𝘰𝘶𝘴 𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘪𝘴𝘯’t 𝘢𝘯 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯𝘵. 𝘐𝘵’𝘴 𝘢 𝘥𝘪𝘴𝘤𝘪𝘱𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘦. P.S. To build this discipline into your leadership rhythm → 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑰𝒏𝒏𝒆𝒓 𝑬𝒅𝒈𝒆 https://lnkd.in/gi-u8ndJ #TheInnerEdge #ContinuousImprovement #ExecutionExcellence #LeadershipRhythm #StrategicLeadership

I watched a teacher with a group of leaders the other day give nearly every student feedback as she circulated. Eager to see how much better students’ writing was going to be after all that feedback, we walked around the room expecting to see big improvements. From student to student, their work looked exactly the same as it had before the feedback. What gives? So we listened more closely to the feedback she was giving: “You’re missing key details. Go back and revise.” We watched as a confused 7th grader flipped back through the text, unsure where to start. So we helped in the moment by having the teacher adjust her feedback: “You’ve written strong topic sentences for your two body paragraphs—nice work. Your second paragraph is missing two key details, like we named in the criteria for success. Re-read page 71 and find at least one detail to add. I’ll come back in five minutes to check the detail you added.” What happened next? Students’ writing actually improved, and here's the added bonus: so did their connection with the teacher. Instead of feeling frustrated or stuck, they were eager to show her their revisions. That formula — affirm the effort, name the gap, name the fix, and plan the follow-up — is one worth practicing, especially if you have 32 other students you need to give feedback to like she did. When teachers use it, student work gets better, and so do relationships.

All the scholarship on assessment and feedback means little if we cannot translate it into practice. This week I am teaching a course in the Graduate Certificate in University Teaching, where I introduce academics to some amazing scholars who help us think more expansively about how feedback and assessment supports learning goals for students. First, I translate scholarship into principles: 1. Feedback is relational practice Elizabeth Molloy shows how trust, dialogue and psychological safety shape whether feedback becomes usable. 2. Feedback is cultural practice David Boud and Joanna Tai highlight how assessment and program cultures build students’ capacity for future learning (sustainable assessment) and evaluative judgement. 3. Feedback is learning practice Naomi Winstone and David Carless demonstrate that students need structured opportunities to interpret and apply feedback (feedback literacies), not just receive it. 4. Feedback is emotional and identity practice Rebecca Olson and Rola Ajjawi show how belonging, vulnerability and identity shape how students respond to feedback (and how feedback shapes identities). Then I translate these principles into my teaching practice: – Embed dialogue and collaboration (professional learning communities model) across the course – Create feedback conversations in class before assessment is due – Add ‘changes I made because of peer feedback’ as part of the graded assessment task – Integrate self-assessment to build evaluative judgement and use this in marking and written feedback process – Dedicate class time to address all assessment questions throughout the semester – Link earlier feedback to later tasks so students can act on it (scaffold assessment tasks) In my Grad Cert class, academics then apply this work to a subject or supervision context they teach. They identify the explicit role feedback will play and design three or four feedback activities to embed across pedagogy and assessment. This is scholarly teaching: translating theory into practice. It is how we unlock the creativity and academic rigour of university teaching. And it is fun!

If you’re not ending your sessions with reflection, you’re leaving 50% of the learning on the table. Here’s a simple tool I use to fix that: Highlight, Lowlight, Headlight. You can use it in two ways: 1️⃣ For participants: At the end of a session, give people 5–7 minutes to fill it out. Then run a quick Think-Pair-Share. This helps them process what went well in the session, what could’ve been better, and what learnings they’ll apply going forward. 2️⃣ For you as a facilitator: Fill it out yourself after every workshop or class. You’ll notice patterns, learn what resonates with people, and continually improve your practice. What's your go-to reflection tool? Let me know in the comments! (Feel free to steal this template - it’s made for facilitators, trainers, teachers, and anyone who wants a nice way to close sessions in a meaningful way) #Facilitation #Workshops #TrainerTips #Leadership

Ensuring Students Act on Feedback Feedback is only as valuable as the action students take in response to it. Too often, feedback becomes a passive exchange,teachers give comments, students glance at them, and then move on to the next task without making meaningful improvements. To truly accelerate progress, we need to create structures that ensure feedback leads to independent development. Here’s how: 1. Build Dedicated Feedback Lessons into Your Scheme of Work If feedback is to be effective, there must be time for students to engage with it properly. This means moving beyond a quick ‘read your comments’ approach and embedding dedicated feedback lessons into the scheme of work. By protecting this time within the curriculum, feedback becomes a continuous, structured process rather than an afterthought. 2. Use Targeted and Specific Feedback Vague comments like ‘be more analytical’ or ‘develop your explanation’ don’t give students a clear direction. Instead, feedback should be precise and actionable. For example: • Before: ‘Your analysis is weak.’ • After: ‘To strengthen your analysis, explain why this event was significant and link it to a wider consequence.’ Or Pose questions to help students develop their answer or guide them to the correct knowledge. Pairing feedback with examples or sentence starters can help students apply improvements more effectively. 3. Teach Students How to Use Feedback Students need to be explicitly taught how to engage with feedback. This includes: • Modelling the process – Show students how to act on feedback by walking them through a worked example. • Guiding self-reflection – Use prompts like, ‘How does my answer compare to the model? Where can I improve?’ • Encouraging peer support – Structured peer review can help students identify strengths and areas for development before teacher intervention. I often like to highlight a weak paragraph in a green box so students know what area to precisely improve/re-write, as you can see below. 4. Use Feedback Trackers to Monitor Progress Instead of feedback disappearing into exercise books, encourage students to keep a feedback tracker where they record teacher comments and their own reflections. They can then set targets for the next piece of work and review previous feedback to ensure they’re improving over time. Feedback is most powerful when it becomes part of the learning process, not just an add-on. By allocating time in the curriculum for feedback lessons, making guidance explicit, and encouraging students to take ownership, we can transform feedback from words on a page into meaningful improvement. The ultimate goal? Students who no longer just receive feedback, but actively use it to progress.

🧵 FEEDBACK! Feedback should guide students toward improvement, be clear and specific, and encourage action. Here's a breakdown of key strategies to make the feedback process more impactful and move students forward! 🎯 **Make Feedback Specific**: Avoid generic comments like "good work" or "needs improvement." Be precise and clear. For example, “Your analysis is strong because you used…” This approach helps students understand exactly what they did well or need to improve. 🔍 **Make Feedback Understandable, Helpful, and Actionable**: Kate Jones explains that teacher must ensure students grasp the feedback and know how to improve. 1. Understandable: Do pupils understand the feedback? Do they understand what they need to do to improve? 2. Helpful: If the feedback isn't helping the learner move forwards and progress with their learning, then the feedback is not effective. 3. Actionable: Can pupils act on the feedback? Teachers should provide a task and time to respond and act on all feedback provided. ✍️ **Give Formative Feedback**: Focus on providing feedback that guides learning rather than just grading. Use Michael Chiles FCCT Goldilocks method—provide just enough feedback to be helpful without overwhelming students. Encourage them to think about how they can apply the feedback. 👥 **Provide Whole Class Feedback**: Analyse common patterns in student work and address them with the entire class. This helps tackle widespread issues and provides all students with actionable steps for improvement. 🕵️ **Turn Feedback into a Detective Work**: Challenge students to engage with their feedback by turning it into a puzzle or what Dylan Wiliam calls ‘detective work’. This approach challenges students to fix errors in their work and helps them internalise the feedback more effectively. 🙇 **Ensure Feedback is Actionable**: Feedback should encourage students to “think hard” (Robert Coe) Use Tom Sherrington’s 5 R's approach. These steps help students take concrete actions to improve their learning. 1. Redraft or Redo: Go back and edit specific areas. 2. Rehearse or Repeat: Go back and practise to master specific skills. 3. Revisit or Respond: Go back and answer similar practice questions. 4. Relearn or Retest: Go back to consolidate understanding of previous content. 5. Research or Record: Go back to develop work further with extensive research. ⚖️ **Reduce Workload with Dylan Wiliam’s 4 Quarters Marking Method**: Split your feedback time into four equal parts: 25% Mark in Detail: Provide specific, actionable feedback. 25% Peer Assess: Students assess each other’s work under supervision. 25% Skim Mark: Look for common errors and patterns (WCF). 25% Self Assess: Students evaluate their own work, building independence. 🤝 **Peer Feedback**: Teach and scaffold how to ‘Kind’, ‘Specific’ and ‘Helpful’ language to support students with delivering formative feedback to their peers. Provide examples of effective feedback and model the process.

✨ Feedback, but make it FUN & MEANINGFUL! ✨ As an Individuals and Societies teacher, I’m always on the lookout for ways to make feedback more engaging and impactful for my students. That’s when I decided to create graphic organizers based on 7 powerful feedback strategies like TAG, STAR, and more! 🎨📚 Here’s a quick snapshot of these strategies (Designed using my very favourite Canva ): 1️⃣ TAG: Tell, Ask, Give 2️⃣ STAR: Situation, Task, Action, Result 3️⃣ EARS: Empathy, Ask, Recommend, Strengthen 4️⃣ POM: Praise, Observe, Motivate 5️⃣ GROW: Goal, Reality, Options, Will 6️⃣ FUEL: Feelings, Understand, Explore, Learn 7️⃣ ABC: Acknowledge, Build, Challenge These graphic organizers are versatile tools that can: 🌟 Simplify peer feedback during group projects 🌟 Encourage structured reflections in class activities 🌟 Help students give thoughtful and constructive suggestions 🌟 Foster a culture of collaboration and meaningful dialogue Whether it’s for group work, self-assessment, or creative brainstorming, these organizers are designed to inspire students to dig deeper and make their feedback truly matter! 💡✍️ And yes, the best part? They work for all subjects and all grade levels—just tweak and adapt them to your needs! 🚀 I’d love to share these resources and hear how YOU are creating meaningful learning experiences in your classrooms. Let’s connect, collaborate, and co-create more tools for empowered learners! 🔗💬 For more such resources, feel free to reach out—I’d be thrilled to exchange ideas and learn from YOU! 🌍✨ #Education #TeachingTools #GraphicOrganizers #FeedbackMatters #CreativeLearning #Collaboration

Too often, offering students feedback is an exercise in compliance. The professor offers feedback, and expects the students to incorporate all of it. (It’s like the professor is giving items on a checklist. The subtext: “do these things and I’ll give you an A.”) But I want my students to think about feedback differently. I want them to be able to cut between different sets of feedback, connecting them to each other and linking them back to their own understanding. With that in mind… Here’s the feedback cycle I’ve designed for my Comp II students at Berkeley. 1️⃣ Self-Assessment Students use their own self-designed rubric to evaluate their own performance. 2️⃣ Peer Assessment Students get feedback and assessment from other students. 3️⃣ Instructor Assessment I’ll offer feedback on the assignment. 4️⃣ AI Assessment Students get feedback from a custom chatbot. I will be incorporating some of Anna Mills’s prompts for the PAIRR framework. 5️⃣ Assessment Assessment (or Reflection) Students apply the different assessments to their own self-assessment. They defend their ultimate edits within the context of their Self-Empowering Writing Process (SEWP).

🌱 Teachers give tons of feedback… …but here’s the uncomfortable truth: Most of it never lands. Not because students don’t care.. but because the feedback wasn’t designed to be used. When Jamie Clark turned our work into the “Transformative Feedback” poster, it reminded me of something simple but game-changing: Feedback only works when the process works. The 4 questions that instantly improve your feedback process: 1. What do I want students to think about? 2. How much independence can they handle right now? 3. Which feedback form fits this stage of learning? 4. What is the landing space, where can I actually see that the thinking happened? Miss step 4, and the feedback disappears... The secret? Scaffold your feedback! - Beginners → clear, directive, example-rich guidance. - Intermediate → hints, peer feedback, structured prompts. - Advanced → challenge, self-assessment, detective work. Feedback is a process, not a one-time event. Design it. Align it. Let students act on it. That’s when feedback becomes transformative. Your turn: What’s one feedback mistake you’ll never make again? (Asking this always brings the BEST stories 👇)

Whenever I post a concern about AI in education, someone pops up to say it has accelerated their learning. I get it. I have too. But the research on cognitive offloading keeps mounting, and I worry what that means for attention, memory, and genuine understanding, especially for younger learners. Of course, it mostly comes down to how we use AI. Tools set defaults. Defaults become habits. Habits shape minds. Which is why I was heartened by this new study. In a cross-country experiment with about 150 participants, unguided access to ChatGPT gave only a small bump over human-only work and often looked a lot like AI-only output. Add a simple scaffold and the curve bends. Reflect first. Use AI narrowly to gather evidence. Draft in your own words. Ask the model to attack your draft. Then revise. Under that guided workflow, critical-thinking scores jumped by roughly forty percent and people reported feeling more mentally engaged, even though the task felt harder. That harder-but-better point matters. The risk is not AI in education. The risk is the default, unstructured way many people use it. Unguided, the tool invites passivity and machine-shaped prose. Guided, it behaves like a sparring partner. The mechanism is reflective engagement. Slow down to take a stance. Use the model to surface evidence and adversarial feedback. Iterate. That desirable difficulty is where learning lives. There is also an equity signal. Younger or less experienced participants started lower, but the structured workflow helped narrow, though not eliminate, the gap. That is exactly what you want in schools, where anything-goes AI use risks widening disparities. The right defaults do not just lift averages. They compress variance. So what should classrooms do with this? - Teach AI as critic and evidence finder, not ghostwriter. - Make process visible and assessable. - Require a short pre-write. - Allow targeted AI look-ups. - Insist on drafting in the student’s own words. - Then require an AI red-team of the draft before revision. Grade the product and the receipts bundle: pre-write, sources gathered with AI, the critique transcript, and a brief reflection on what changed. In edtech and LMS design, tilt the experience toward question, critique, evidence by default and delay full-text generation until a claim is on the table. Set rails that make the reflective path the easy path. AI can speed learning. Without structure, it speeds forgetting. Research Caveats: one topic domain; short-run effects; a convenience sample around universities and workshops; some measures based on self-report. The comparative signal is strong, but we should want replication across subjects, age bands, and longer retention windows. Use it as a guide, not gospel.