Teacher Feedback to Improve Pupil Learning
The Education Endowment Foundation published a guidance report in 2021 with six recommendations for using teacher feedback to improve pupil learning (with a guest foreword by Dylan Wiliam!). The report focuses on teacher-delivered feedback and is relevant to the teaching of all students aged 5 to 18, within any subject area.
On their webpage, the EEF writes:
All school leaders understand the importance of providing meaningful feedback. Done well, it supports pupil progress, building learning, addressing misunderstandings, and thereby closing the gap between where a pupil is and where the teacher wants them to be.
However, not all feedback has positive effects. Done badly, feedback can even harm progress. Nor is feedback ‘free’. Large amounts of time are spent providing pupils with feedback, perhaps not always productively.
Historically, much consideration has been given to the methods by which feedback is delivered. Specifically, should feedback be written, or should it be verbal? This guidance report aims to move beyond this and focus on what really matters: the principles of good feedback rather than the written or verbal methods of feedback delivery.
The guidance report is based on the best available international evidence, in addition to a review of current practice, and refined through consultation with teachers and other experts.
The recommendations are:
(1) lay a good foundation for effective feedback via high-quality instruction and formative assessment;
(2) deliver well-timed feedback that focuses on learning progress;
(3) plan how students should receive and use feedback;
(4) think of how to provide written feedback;
(5) think of how to provide written verbal feedback; and
(6) develop a school policy that prioritises and exemplifies the principles of effective feedback.
Below are the six recommendations as they appear on the poster:
The report can be found here and the recommendations poster here.
