In How to Give Effective Feedback to Your Students, Susan M. Brookhart describes teacher feedback for students as “just-in-time just-for me” information. As part of formative assessment, the power of feedback is its simultaneous double barreled approach; it addresses the cognitive (Where I am in my learning? and What I can do next?) and the motivational factor (I have control over my own learning).

Brookhart shows that feedback strategies differ in timing (give as promptly as possible), amount (limit to two to three main points; sandwich the improvement between two positives), mode (oral, written or demonstration; asking a student “What do you notice about this?”) and the audience (do one-on-one unless several students have the same learning problem). The feedback content can vary in focus (give feedback on the process, the task or the student as change agent; refer to student's work, then give strengths, and next make a comment or suggestion; encourage student to choose to do better), comparison (compare student's work to the learning target and rubric or to previous work), function (point out improvements over last work; give one to two small doable next steps), valence (be positive; achievement feedback affirms what was done well and why while improvement feedback indicates strategies for improvement), clarity (is at student's developmental level; use simply vocabulary and structure; and making sure the student understands the feedback), specificity (focus on precise descriptive words, not “great”; describe concepts; describe learning strategies that may be useful), and tone (use words indicating the student is active learner; ask questions; share what you wonder about; and light the way forward). Not only should feedback be descriptive (what happened) rather than judgmental (it's wrong) but the most effective feedback consists of comments without a grade; students disregard the comments if they see a grade. Feedback is good if the student do improve, they are motivated, and the classroom becomes a place where feedback is valued.

Effective feedback invites the students to discuss their choices and next actions. Written feedback can be written directly on the student's work, or annotated on the rubric with a cover list of skills or a combination of the two. The pattern for feedback is a positive statement about the student's work based on the criteria, a comment/question on the process which draws the student in, and teacher or student suggestions for the next steps for improvement. Likewise, oral feedback to an individual student can be done quietly at a student's desk, at the teachers' desk or in conference time, or out-of-class. Teachers observe for students' readiness to hear the feedback. Teachers can give oral feedback to a group or class at the beginning of class by summarizing observations on students' previous work (“I saw a pattern;” refocusing on the target; and encouraging students to do next steps. Most of oral feedback is in-the-moment coaching about the process.

Teachers can help their students to use feedback through teacher-feedback and self-feedback. The instructors can model giving and using feedback through a think-aloud. As instructors teach self-assessment skills, they teach students to monitor their own progress in context of the learning such as keeping their own quiz scores on a graph and determining if their present strategy is working. Also, they can have students rewrite the rubric in their own words. Likewise, students can identify in a chart their correct, incorrect answers, identify why they got it wrong and what strategy they will use to improve. In addition, students have to be taught how to give peer comments such as “base the comments on the rubric,” “don't judge,” “praise,” and “make specific suggestions.” No matter the type of feedback, students need opportunities to use the feedback in similar learning tasks.

Brookhart gives content specific examples of feedback. She give examples of feedback for specific audiences such as struggling learners, reluctant learners, and English Language learners.

Although the author mentions demonstration as feedback, she does not devote a chapter to it as she has done to oral and written feedback. She does not usually incorporate technology as part of her feedback. Even with this minor discrepancies, her book serves a solid introduction to formative feedback. If teachers apply her effective feedback ideas, their students will grow drastically in their learning.

Dr. Harry Grover Tuttle focuses on assessing and improving student learning through low- and high-tech tools.

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