Teacher feedback about student learning is essential for students and integral to teaching, learning and assessment. Feedback can clarify for students:
- how their knowledge, understanding and skills are developing in relation to the syllabus outcomes and content being addressed
- how to improve their learning.
While it is not a requirement for teachers to provide informal feedback to students during the development of student work for a formal assessment task, it may be a valuable way for teachers to monitor student progress and the authorship of student work. Marks or grades are not to be attributed to informal feedback. Schools will make decisions regarding the provision of informal feedback ensuring equal opportunity for all students to receive feedback from teachers.
Principles of effective feedback
Feedback enables students to recognise strengths as well as areas for improvement, and to identify and plan with their teacher the next steps in their learning. Students should be provided with feedback that:
- is timely, specific and related to the learning and assessment intention
- is constructive and provides meaningful information to students about their learning in a variety of forms
- focuses on the outcomes of the task and corrects misunderstandings
- identifies and reinforces students’ strengths
- provides information about how they can improve
- facilitates the development of and provides opportunities for self-assessment and reflection during the learning process
- informs future teaching and learning opportunities.
Feedback can occur at any point in the teaching, learning and assessment cycle. It may:
- include regular teacher-student dialogue to guide student learning
- focus on particular knowledge, understanding and skills related to outcomes and content, and/or processes applied to the task.
Students may benefit from opportunities to self-assess, self-monitor and make judgements about their work in relation to standards and should be provided with regular opportunities to reflect on their learning.
Feedback to support student learning
Providing students with advice about how they can improve their learning is a key element of effective feedback. Students benefit from opportunities to:
- rehearse and practise
- discuss their progress and strategies for improving learning
- reflect on their learning and plan how to improve their knowledge, understanding and skills.
Feedback supports student learning when it:
- clarifies learning in relation to outcomes, criteria and standards
- is based on a standards-referenced approach rather than comparisons with other students
- recognises improvements made over time in comparison to prior work samples
- offers alternative approaches or asks students to think of alternatives
- focuses on the task rather than the student
- is descriptive and questioning
- values student work and focuses on the quality rather than the quantity
- models how to apply a particular skill
- facilitates self-reflection
- encourages positive motivational beliefs and self-esteem
- is timely and provides opportunities for students to act upon advice.
Forms of feedback
The nature of the assessment task and the context of the learning influences the type of feedback provided to students. Feedback may take a variety of forms, including digital and other modes. It may be formal or informal, and should encourage teacher-student dialogue about learning.
It may include:
- oral feedback from the teacher, student and their peers, such as collaborative activities and conferencing
- written feedback from the teacher and/or peers, based on the criteria for assessing learning and/or marking guidelines.
Teachers may consider the following forms of feedback to support teaching, learning and assessment:
- whole-course cohort discussions to clarify the task
- whole-course cohort or individualised comments about aspects of the task where students performed well, and how to improve
- peer and self-assessments and self-reflections
- checklists, criteria sheets, comments, marks or grades
- ongoing oral or written comments, including questioning students’ understanding
- cues, reinforcements or prompts to redirect learning
- drafts
- peer collaboration using online tools
- written, audio or digital annotations
- discussion of a range of student work samples and other examples beyond the classroom in relation to criteria and/or marking guidelines.
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