Examples & Prompts for Feedback

✏️ To Document or Not?

Feedback on practice and process activities does not always have to be documented or recorded. Verbal real-time critiques during class or office hours might be just what your students need to help them learn. And if you do decide to document it you have several options: voice or video recordings, feedback banks, common challenge checklists, or rubrics, to name a few! Finally, consider whether it works for you to give detailed feedback to the class collectively in lieu of individualized feedback.

This listing is a sampling of ideas for various situations; however, it is not exhaustive.

Some faculty have their students include a dear reviewer letter or checklist coverpage with the draft of their assignment. This is an opportunity for students to become better editors of their work. Additionally, when the grader reads the concerns raised in the letter, feedback becomes more efficient.
Consider your communication options: spoken or video feedback (live or prerecorded) may be faster than written. Some faculty use VoiceThread inside Moodle to leave a spoken summary comment since spoken feedback can be faster and more personal. Feedback on drafts could involve a combination of markups within students’ individual files, plus one summary comment to the student or the class as a whole.
In certain disciplines, so-called desk critiques are customary. As students work on their projects in class, the instructor talks to each student individually and provides brief, impromptu feedback. These sessions happen frequently and reinforce the idea of the iterative process.
One-on-one or small-group conferences are impactful and may be conducted during office hours either onsite or remotely.
For some faculty, rubrics are the way to go. Prior to submission, they present their rubrics to their students so they have the chance to ask questions, understand criteria, and see the components emphasized in grading. Rubrics can be useful for instructor-student feedback and peer review.
If rubrics don’t work for the course, simply set aside in-class time to answer questions about criteria and provide guidance.
One or two action items in bite-sized chunks, especially if well timed, are often more useful to a student than paragraphs of detailed comments. One round of feedback might focus on the introduction and main idea, while a subsequent round may be more concerned with precedent and sourcing.
To avoid repeating themselves, some faculty use feedback banks or common error checklists.

Prompts

Pointing: What’s most striking or resonant? What’s important? What’s working well?

Believing and doubting: A good-cop-bad-cop approach, where the roles are predefined.

Movies of the mind: Asking the audience to tell exactly what they are thinking as they read/watch/hear/look.

Plus/Challenge/Change: Everyone has to respond with one thing that is working well, one thing that is not working as well, and one substantive, actionable suggestion that helps address the challenge area.

The Praise Sandwich: Feedback is often better digested when sandwiched with praise. Start with something positive (it’s always there if you look enough), Follow up with something that needs work, using recipient-centered language (“I got a little fuzzy on the takeaway at…”). End on another positive note, perhaps about your faith in their ability to improve their work.