Crafting effective feedback comments

The feedback sandwich is a framework that is often recommended for constructing a paragraph feedback comment.

The structure is: 

• Tell the learner about something they did well.
• Tell the learner about something they didn’t do so well. Avoid starting this section with ‘but’ or ‘however’. Using ‘but’ or ‘however’ negates the previous affirmation comments. 
• Tell the learner something else positive.

The aim of the format is to ‘soften the blow’ of negative points by cushioning them with positive ones. While this can help you make sure that you are keeping a positive tone, the increasing fear in practice is that this format is overused. The result is that students are conditioned to it and will feel like any positive comments are there for show, merely to fill the space in this equation and do not hold any weight of their own. For this reason, it’s worth exploring other methods of giving clear and useful feedback.

The following is an alternate suggestion based on a framework used for audio/video feedback. You can read more about that in this article on the video feedback process. 

• Say hi – It’s a small thing but it has been shown that including a students name can reduce the terse quality of a feedback message (just imagine the difference between an email that has your name at the top and one that doesn’t.)
• Comments on in-class interactions – This is an added extra and may not be possible based on how much visibility/connection you have had with that student, but being able to say something simple like ‘I liked your discussion board/tutorial comments’ or ‘I appreciated our in-progress discussion about your work’ is a great way to acknowledge them as an individual and potentially make them more open to your feedback comments.
• Textual/formatting issues – If the student has made any structural mistakes perhaps best to get them out of the way here, ‘Take care with your referencing for the next assignment as there are a few issues here with the ordering of the elements’.
• Overall comment – Overall how is it? For example: ‘Overall this was a clear report with a few places where more detail would have assisted in further nuance’. By giving this overall framing first up it provides context for both positive and corrective feedback that appears afterwards (ie, negating the sandwich problem).
• Commenting on the substance of the assignment with feed-forward emphasis – This should be the meat of your comment, what have you noticed about their work and what should they do next, looking forward.
• Invitation – Invite them to reach out for further clarification ‘I hope this was useful and get in touch if you need further information’. 

While there are a number of elements here, hopefully, you can also see how there are opportunities to make use of comment banks to save time while still providing a rich comment, as described in the practical recommendations below.

Develop a bank of comments or selection of go-to phrases that you can reproduce in feedback

While the knee jerk reaction might be that this feels like ‘cheating’, in reality, students often err in ways that can be captured by similar comments. So rather than spending the time trying to craft content that effectively says the same thing, using standard phrases gives you the opportunity to add further information and more nuanced comments around these points. Ultimately, it is a commonly used practice and one of the things that are generally advised by experienced tutors. There are even comment bank functions that you can use in Canvas Speed Grader to facilitate this.

If you are concerned that students might feel hard done by if they discover the use of similar comments/phrases, between their own and a peers’ work, keep in mind that you can explain it to them with the above (i.e., standard comments leave space for more unique feedback).

Also noting here that developing a bank of feedback comments is very different from copy-pasting a students feedback comment in full – if your feedback would fit two different student assignments without adjustment this indicates that the level of detail is not appropriate.

In the case of in-progress feedback, you may also wish to keep a range of go-to phrases ‘in your back pocket’ for guiding conversations (“You’re on the right track. What would happen if …”). You will likely build up this set of phrases during your experience of working with students, but it is useful to think about how you might develop these (and retain the good ones) if you are new to teaching.

Make sure that you understand the rubric the best you can (if you have one) and introduce it to students as part of the assignment

The rubric (where present) is the framework used by students to understand what is expected. Being able to articulate where a student’s work falls in relation to this standard is part of marking, but also gears into the feedback. Introducing the rubric as part of the assignment framing can further reinforce its importance for students as a focal point. In relation to in-progress feedback, referring to the rubric will again allow students to understand the connections to endpoint goals and how they can target them effectively.

Give students collective feedback

Depending on the flexibility you have in your tutorials/contact time, you may have the opportunity to communicate to the cohort collective strengths and misconceptions/areas where improvement is needed around a particular assignment (preferably before they get access to their assignment feedback). There are a number of reasons why putting together collective feedback is a good idea:

• Hearing collective feedback can spike student interest in how they went and make them more curious about their own feedback, hopefully increasing their engagement with it. 
• It helps with the action of staging feedback so it doesn’t come as a shock for students – by broaching the topic generally, students get the chance to measure their performance before receiving their unique feedback. This may lead to less of a surprise when they receive their own feedback and consequently, they might be able to take it in with a more constructive rather than an emotional response. 
• It allows you to communicate feedback in a forum where you can go through common sticking points or misconceptions with the broader class and answer questions/clarify meaning.

As part of this interaction, it’s good if you can get students who understand the concept to provide some explanation as well. The more collaborative/interactive you can make this experience the less it feels like you are the one communicating opinions, and more that you are identifying the best practices together.