This post is guest authored by Erin Bronstein
As I finish my twenty-sixth year in education, I like to think I’ve learned a few things about ways to give and manage feedback for students. That said, I don’t want to imply that my system is perfect, or that I don’t continue to tweak or examine it. Still, I think I’ve found some ways that work (for me and my students).
You might be wondering why I am writing about student feedback, or maybe why you want to read this post? Before earning my PhD, I spent 17 years as a public school social studies teacher. I taught middle and high school before joining higher education. I felt that I learned a great deal about different ways to provide feedback during my K12 teaching career. Through trial and error, I decided when to spot check, when to conference, what to collect, and how to schedule due dates for different needs (theirs and mine).
Feedback is important for student learning and growth. This is well-documented in literature about K12 teaching. If you are interested in this in practical ways that I find applicable to university settings, I want to offer one of my favorite go-to teacher sites, the Cult of Pedagogy. On the site they explore many topics in teaching, but here are my search results about giving feedback to students.
My experience and learning about offering feedback to students did not end with K12 teaching. During graduate school, I learned to schedule time because I could get lost in my own research and classes. In my first position after graduate school I taught a 4-4 load and recognized I had to be even more planned and thoughtful in how I would offer feedback to students. This is to say that over the course of my career, I have learned (and continue to) a lot about teaching and learning with students…and about myself.
I say that last part because I think your feedback plan for classes has to be authentic to who you are. My preservice teachers might sigh at this because, I often say teaching has to be authentic to your personality and habits generally–teaching doesn’t work in my experience if you try to be something you aren’t. This can refer to every and all aspects of teaching, but feedback represents the perfect tension of who I am and what my students need. I want to offer every piece of advice and every helpful hint, but time is not on my side…or theirs.
An aside: one thing that interested me in looking up literature on the value of feedback to students in higher education, I mostly found work about the value of student feedback to us as instructors. I did find a couple of interesting pieces about feedback in higher education, including Winstone & Boud (2022) article on disentangling assessment and feedback, or Columbia University’s Feedback for Learning page which offers information about different reasons for and types of feedback.
How Do I Approach Feedback
Now that I’ve set the stage with my experience and limitations, let me explain my approach. My goal is to be as consistent as possible with my feedback. That includes my timetable, minimum length of comment, etc. When I started teaching four college classes a semester I knew I needed to make some conscious decisions about grading. I teach fewer courses now, but I still needed and wanted to leave room for my writing and research. With this in mind, I looked at my week and blocked out time for teaching and writing and thought about when I could most effectively offer feedback to students. I used the following guiding principles to help me.
My guiding principles:
- Feedback should be personal. I try to always show that I’m reading the student’s work in front of me and personalize my comments. That isn’t to say that there aren’t general comments, but I try to make sure there is something that lets them know I’m present.
- Be prompt. For reading assignments, I try to do it the same day. For projects and papers, I try to return all projects and papers at the same time in a week (and I look at my personal calendar before I schedule big project due dates, so I don’t derail my momentum or feel guilt, one of my many teaching emotions).
- Value the assignment. I try to make sure that my classwork isn’t the same as the homework, and that I can explain how I see an assignment as important to student learning–it helps me give targeted feedback.
To offer a more specific example, I have regular reading checks in many of my face-to-face courses. I called these assignments noticings, and they have four prompts. These prompts are 1) a summary of the texts as a whole; 2) what they can use in their teaching; 3) What they are uncertain about or disagree with; and 4) a question they have. These assignments are due the morning of class. This gives me usually three hours to send feedback. I read them and focus on a few points: 1) are all readings present, 2) what is the nature of the uncertainty or disagreement?; and 3) how can I answer the question. I focus my comments on these areas and because students ask different questions and express different uncertainties, I respond to these elements specifically. I may say “Nice summaries”, but then move on to their specific comments. I also tweak my slides and activities for class that day based on the work students submit. I work quickly. I write a couple of sentences in most cases, but I find this works with students.
It also takes time for them to realize I’m responding to them. I’m sure some never read it, but every semester multiple students mention that they realize I offer feedback to their writing. In several cases I have weekly conversations with students about their work and my suggestions. And, it impacts class. (And, when class ends that day, I’m usually ready to move onto next week in terms of preparation and reading, instead of hanging on to that week’s topic).
Caveats
My approach isn’t perfect. I think one limitation is that because I really prefer a scheduled time (and hate when CANVAS tells me I have assignments to view) I’m not as flexible with make-up work as I might be. I can be rigid–due to my own time constraints. That said, if a student is having an emergency, I will twist myself into a pretzel to accommodate them on long-term, non-reading assignments. I do not allow late noticings assignments. I do offer to drop the lowest score or give extra credit if students do them all.
My other caveat returns to the beginning: I have learned a lot about myself through teaching. As I mentioned, I do not like having assignments in my Canvas queue, so I grade promptly. I joke with a couple of academic friends that my goal is to see the Panda on the Canvas app telling me “Your to-do list is empty”. When I work through the student work in a timely way, I am able to stay on top of the many demands of my chosen occupation and life beyond it.
But also, I think this reminds my students that their work is valuable and timely. They are still considering it when we come to class, and then we can use those reading responses to frame some of our work together as well as apply those ideas. They also know that I think the timing of the assignments has value–because it relates to the class they will be in shortly after. As an educator of future teachers, I also hope I’m modeling responsible management of my courses–for my students and me. I might even argue that having a good feedback plan is one of my forms of self care.
Erin Bronstein is an assistant professor of social studies education in the College of Education, Health and Human Services. Prior to earning her PhD, she was a middle and high school social studies teacher for seventeen years.
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes, 45 seconds.