Empowering Students Through Effective Feedback

Feedback can be a powerful tool, but it’s only effective when students understand and act on the feedback and when it’s built on strong partnerships that increase student hope and belief in success because they know others will support them in the process.

Teachers can build a strong foundation for effective feedback by nurturing a classroom culture where it’s safe to take risks, and mistakes are seen as part of learning—a growth mindset. In this article, I introduce two high-quality feedback routines.

From the beginning of the school year, I begin by explicitly defining the success criteria for academic, social and emotional, and collaborative skills, including the progression of how a day’s learning connects to the end-of-unit goal. Being clear about success criteria empowers students and motivates them so they are more likely to persist.

I intentionally build classroom community, modeling kind partnership interactions. I also model a process or strategy and sometimes make mistakes to show how I reflect and act on them to improve.

When providing feedback to students, I pay close attention to the impact on the student—how are they reacting? Everyone handles feedback differently, and I want to ensure that they understand the assessment why and what. Just as I model academic, social and emotional, and collaborative skills, I model what feedback looks like, explain why I give it, and ask for student input on how effective the feedback is.

Routines for Effective Feedback

Here’s What, So What, Now What is a feedback protocol I have adapted from Standards-Based Learning in Action: Moving from Theory to Practice. My example is a third-grade student working on the standard “Ask questions to check understanding of information presented, stay on topic, and link their comments to the remarks of others,” with Here’s What (where I objectively state what they did with evidence from their work): “When you worked in our small group today, you asked three questions about our topic, the text. An example of this is when you asked Sofia what text evidence she was using for her claim.”

This bridges into where I share why this is important, or So What: “Did you notice how your question led to all of us in the group looking at the text and searching for evidence? Every student added to the conversation as a result of this.” (When possible, I ask the student what they noticed: “Why do you think this was important in our conversation?” This empowers them to reflect and see their impact.)

Now What is where we determine the next steps; I keep this simple with one or two steps that are most important along the learning trajectory. “When you look at our success criteria, the third part is to add on to what others say. When might you have done that today?”

If the student is able to come up with an idea, I jot down their language (or have them write it) on a sticky note as a reminder of the goal for our next conversation. If they need assistance, I offer a stem: I agree with you and would add _____. “How might you remember to do this tomorrow? Let’s check in after our small group tomorrow to celebrate success!” This allows us to both feel accountable to the goal and to reflect on growth.

When I support students using Here’s What, So What, Now What with each other, they go through a similar process. I begin by modeling with a student as my partner or by having two students practice and model it for the class. I post the steps with sentence stems: Here’s what you did... This is why it matters... You might want to try... When this is paired with the success criteria, I’m maximizing tools to scaffold their first attempts. I coach partners as they engage in giving each other feedback and offer them suggestions. This isn’t done in one day—we practice and get better over time.

A second strategy is TAG! You’re It!, also from Standards-Based Learning in Action, for teaching students peer-to-peer feedback. This is similar to Here’s What, So What, Now What, with the benefit of having an acronym to help us remember the steps (T for Tell what you like, A for Ask a question about the work, G for Give a suggestion, then You’re It to decide what to do next). This example focused on the fourth-grade writing standard: Introduce a topic or text clearly, state an opinion, and create an organizational structure in which related ideas are grouped to support the writer’s purpose.

A student might Tell their partner what they liked: “I like how your opinion in the opening paragraph includes three clear reasons.” Then they could Ask one of the following questions: “Why did you choose this topic?” “What did you work the hardest on when writing this?” Open-ended questions are best to encourage deep conversation and reflection.

Give a suggestion is the most sophisticated part of this process and needs more modeling and support. I teach students to consider the impact of their suggestion by choosing their words correctly. For example, instead of “You should,” a student could use “You might” to offer a next step. A student might say, “I really am intrigued by the second reason for your opinion—might you add a few more details to that in your next draft?”

The final step, You’re it, is one that is often missing from peer partnerships; I recommend starting a writing lesson with peer feedback so that students have time to act on this step. You’re it is where the students discuss what comes next: I ask, “What will you do today to meet our success criteria? Let’s talk about how that might look.” By discussing what it might look like, students can act as thought partners and generate ideas to work on right away.

What we are primed to pay attention to is what we notice most. When the success criteria and feedback processes are clear, that is what teachers focus on and what students zero in on, equipping them with strategies, processes, and a growth mindset. They also see the power of partnerships and collaboration in their learning.