It’s a familiar story… A faculty member spends hours reading and commenting on student work only to have students turn right to the grade, often skimming over the faculty-provided feedback or ignoring it altogether. So, how can we avoid wasting our time and get students to actually read and respond to (and benefit from) our feedback? The following strategies should help encourage students to do just that.
Strategies
Explain the purpose.
Why are you giving feedback? How does your feedback connect to your learning outcomes and goals? Communicate the purpose of your feedback to students and remind them of the purpose each time they receive feedback on a learning activity or assessment. If students understand why they should be reading your feedback and how it benefits them, they may be more likely to do so.
Delay the grade.
Don’t give a grade with feedback. Force students to read and respond to the feedback first before they can access their grades. Build this process into your class time to ensure students understand its importance and have the opportunity to do it.
Focus the feedback.
Don’t overload assignments with feedback. Focus on a handful of the most important issues in the work that students should address first. There will be opportunities to address other issues on future assignments. If there is too much feedback on an assignment, students may become overwhelmed and discouraged and not know where or how to start addressing those issues. Make the process manageable.
Provide actionable feedback.
Tell students what they should do with your feedback. Comments like “vague” or “unsupported” do not explain what students should do to fix those issues. Try to be more specific. For example, “Explain what you mean by X,” or “You need to introduce facts from a more credible source here to support your point about Y.”
Encourage (or mandate) reflection.
Have students reflect in writing on your feedback. They can respond to your feedback, reflect on what they could do to revise based on your comments, and develop a learning plan for how they can address problem areas in their work. When students reflect on their work and your feedback, they are more likely to learn from it.
Hold one-on-one conferences.
Consider conferencing with students individually to address feedback. Have students read your feedback ahead of time and come prepared with questions for you so they can clarify expectations and make sure they understand your comments on their work.
Allow revision and resubmission based on feedback.
Show students that learning doesn’t end when they submit the assignment (or when you return it to them). Being mindful of your own workload and students’ continuing learning and work in your course, you may want to consider allowing students to revise and resubmit their work based on your feedback. You can create parameters for the types of revisions that can be made and the timeframe in which they must be completed and resubmitted to help manage your and students’ workloads.
Have students look ahead.
How is the feedback on the current assessment connected to future assessments? Having students look ahead to upcoming learning in your class (and beyond) will help them focus on iterative learning rather than just grades. Help students see how learning in your class is ongoing and connected and how it applies to future coursework and students’ intended professions.
Feedback is meant to help students learn from their performance and apply what they have learned to revision, resubmission, and future assessment. Once we develop and implement strategies to encourage students to read and respond to our feedback, they will be more likely to see the value in that feedback and their learning will benefit as a result.
Resources
Benigni, M. (2019). Top 5 tips to get students to read your feedback. College of Charleston TLT. https://tlt.cofc.edu/2019/09/23/top-5-tips-to-get-students-to-read-your-feedback/
Glover, C., & Brown, E. (2006). Written feedback for students: Too much, too detailed or too incomprehensible to be effective? Bioscience Education, 7(1), 1-16. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3108/beej.2006.07000004
Louden, K. (2017). Delaying the grade: How to get students to read feedback. Cult of Pedagogy. https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/delayed-grade/
Redd, B.R., & Kennette, L.N. (2017). Getting students to read instructor feedback (and maybe
actually learn from it). College Quarterly, 20(2), 1-11. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1142553.pdf
