Importance of Effective Feedback

Feedback is central to effective education.Students need feedback in order to improve and it is an integral part of our responsibility as educators to provide it. The question then becomes, what is effective feedback? Research by Robert Marzano dating back to the early 2000s’ identifies the following criteria for effective feedback:

• The feedback must be goal related. The information you give students must objectively describe the gap between where the student currently is and the learning goal.

• You should provide students with an example of what success looks like.

• Your feedback must be actionable, specific, and user-friendly.

• Your feedback must be timely, ongoing, and consistent.

• Students should have an opportunity for self-feedback, and feedback on the instruction.

The 2 pieces that I personally find feel are most important are also sometimes the hardest. The first is timeliness and the second is actionability. We are all busy but if we do not provide timely and consistent feedback, students will suffer. This article talks about video games as providing instantaneous feedback with risk, punishments, and rewards for actions taken in the game. While the effect of this instantaneous culture can be debated, the addictiveness and successful teaching of skills cannot.

Feedback must be actionable. Merely marking an answer right or wrong does not supply students the feedback they need. I find that the question I frequently ask myself is “what am I providing these students that the internet cannot?” The content of my lecture can be found on youtube or Wikipedia. Low-level feedback can be provided by computers and algorithms. What we can provide is feedback that is actionable, student-specific and expressed in a way that students can understand and use.