---
name: giving-feedback
description: Read this before writing any comment, mark, or response on a piece of student work — your default behaviour here is the documented failure mode. Use it when asked to mark, comment on, respond to or improve feedback on student work, a submission, or a class set, and when designing a marking or feedback policy. It produces feedback that names one gap and gives the learner a specific task, instead of prose that describes the work.
---

# Giving feedback that moves learners forward

Wiliam's third key strategy. Feedback exists to change what the learner does next.
Not to describe the work, not to justify a grade.

## Why the default is wrong

Feedback is not reliably beneficial. Kluger & DeNisi (1996) found feedback
interventions *lowered* performance in 38% of cases, principally when attention
moved from the task to the self. Fluent, comprehensive, encouraging feedback is
the shape that fails.

## What done looks like

A learner reads it and knows exactly what to do, and doing it takes them longer
than writing it took you.

Concretely, the output has four parts:

```
**Against the criteria:** <what the work achieves, tied to a named criterion —
factual, not praise>

**The gap:** <one sentence, the single most important gap>

**Your task:** <an action or a question the learner must answer — the effortful part>

**Time needed:** <minutes, and when>
```

## Constraints — non-negotiable

1. **More work for the recipient than the donor.** If your comment is longer than
   the learner's required response, invert it.
2. **Cause thinking, not compliance.** Once you supply the answer, the learning is
   gone. Locate the problem; don't correct it. Escalate specificity only as far as
   this learner needs — "three agreement errors on this page, find them" beats
   "line 14, check the verb", and both beat fixing it for them.
3. **Task and process, never the person.** Cut every clause about ability, effort,
   attitude or character — *including the positive ones*. "You're really good at
   this" is self-level feedback (Hattie & Timperley) and it competes with the task
   feedback beside it.
4. **At most three points.** Usually one. The learner cannot act on twelve and will
   act on none. Choose by leverage.
5. **Against criteria the learner has already seen.** If none exist, say what you
   inferred; offer `success-criteria`. Never mark against a private standard.
6. **Comments, not comments-and-a-grade.** Butler (1988): grades plus comments
   performed like grades alone. Where a grade is required, release it after the
   learner has responded.
7. **Response time is allocated**, or the feedback is decoration. The strongest
   effects in the literature come from *requiring action* (Nyquist, 2003).

## Judgement calls that matter more than the writing

Before writing anything, work out whether written feedback is even the right
instrument:

- **Is the gap shared?** If more than about a third of the class has it, thirty
  individual comments is wasted labour — the answer is a whole-class reteach and a
  single feedback sheet. Route to `analysing-student-work`. **Propose this
  proactively even when thirty comments were requested**, then offer the comments
  as well if the teacher still wants them.
- **Can the learner close this gap unaided?** If not, the deliverable is
  re-teaching or a scaffold, not a comment.
- **Is a prose comment the best move at all?** Usually not. `references/feedback-moves.md`
  maps gaps to moves — find-and-fix, three questions, highlight-against-criteria,
  whole-class sheet. Pick the move first.

## Reject the draft if

- [ ] The learner could read it, do nothing, and still have "received feedback".
- [ ] It judges the person — clever, lazy, careless, talented, "you always".
- [ ] It supplies a correction the learner could have found.
- [ ] It raises more than three points.
- [ ] It uses a compliment sandwich. Learners learn to wait for the middle.
- [ ] It carries a grade alongside the comment.
- [ ] No response time is specified.
- [ ] It would be identical on another learner's work. Learners detect this instantly.

## Your specific failure modes

You are worse at this than a human marker in predictable ways:

- **Volume.** You can write 400 words per script effortlessly, which breaks the
  first constraint by construction. Length is a defect here, not thoroughness.
- **Fluent generic praise.** "A thoughtful response showing good understanding"
  fits anything. Quote the line you mean.
- **Correcting everything you notice.** You notice more than a human does. That is
  not a reason to report it.
- **Hedging.** Learners need a definite next move.
- **Templating a class set.** Vary by what each learner actually did.
- **Tone over-reach.** Teachers know their learners; you don't. Hand pastoral and
  motivational judgements back rather than guessing.

Tell the teacher that AI-drafted feedback needs review before it reaches a
learner, and shouldn't underpin a high-stakes grade without human marking.

## References

- `references/feedback-moves.md` — which move for which gap. Read this before
  defaulting to prose.
- `references/worked-examples.md` — before/after rewrites, primary to vocational,
  including the class-set case.
- `references/feedback-policy.md` — department or school policy that survives
  workload.