Feedback That Moves Learning Forward

Teachers spend a lot of time giving feedback-marking books, correcting assessments and telling students what they need to improve. But there is a more important question:

What do students actually do with that feedback?

Feedback only becomes valuable when it changes what happens next.

What does the research say?

Research from the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) identifies feedback as a high-impact, very-low-cost approach to improving learning. Its evidence review suggests an average impact equivalent to around six additional months of progress.

But there is an important catch: not all feedback is effective.

What matters is that feedback helps students understand what they need to improve and, importantly, gives them an opportunity to act on it.

From marking to learning

Consider a familiar routine: a teacher carefully marks an essay, writes several comments and returns it. The student checks the grade, briefly reads the comments and puts the paper away.

A lot of work has happened, but has much learning happened?

Effective feedback should create a simple cycle:

Teach → Check → Give feedback → Student acts → Check again

That might mean asking students to rewrite one paragraph, correct a misconception, improve an answer or explain what they would do differently next time.

It can also mean ch

anging what the teacher does. If half the class has made the same mistake, writing the same comment twenty times may be less effective than stopping, reteaching the concept and checking understanding again.

A simple change to try

The next time you give feedback, ask yourself:

What do I want the student to do differently because of this feedback?

If there is no clear answer, reconsider the feedback.

Sometimes one specific comment followed by five minutes to improve the work can have more value than a page covered in corrections.

And importantly, effective feedback does not always mean more marking. Verbal feedback, whole-class feedback, questioning and opportunities for students to correct their own work can all form part of the process.

At The Teaching Practice, this reflects a principle that guides our approach to professional learning: information alone does not improve practice. What matters is what happens next.

Whether we are developing students or teachers, the goal is the same—take what we learn, put it into practice, reflect and improve.

From Practice to Progress in Every Classroom.

Research source: Education Endowment Foundation, Teaching and Learning Toolkit – Feedback.