Current thinking about the role of feedback in learning is changing. Several important articles that we’ve highlighted in previous issues have proposed less focus on teacher-provided feedback and more consideration of the role that can be played by peer- and self-assessment activities. As noted in
“The idea behind feedback is that it should make the revision process more strategic and ultimately improve the final paper.” (p. 64) However, as many faculty who have provided feedback on students’ written work have discovered, that objective isn’t accomplished as often as it should
The rethinking of feedback as proposed by Boud and Molloy in an article referenced here involves something called “sustainable assessment,” and its overarching goal is equipping students to be lifelong learners.
There is growing interest in the pedagogical literature in something called feedforward. It is, as the name implies, the opposite of feedback, which provides input after the fact. Feedforward offers input focused on the future. It lets students know what they should be doing or
There continues to be interest in the kind of feedback that helps students make changes that improve their work. Take something called feed-forward, for example. It’s defined as “timely and constructive feedback that feeds into the next assignment.” (p. 451) Here’s a study that assessed
It’s not the first time we’ve addressed the issue: why don’t students use our feedback to improve their performance (their writing, their exams, their professional skills)? A revisit is justified because it’s such an important question and because answers are more elusive than we might
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