PN1: Feedback Literacy

This Practice Note addresses a persistent frustration in higher education: students often ignore detailed feedback. The core issue is a lack of “feedback literacy,” meaning students have not been taught how to interpret and act on comments, and course designs often fail to facilitate this. To bridge this gap, the author suggests treating feedback as an ongoing, designed process rather than an isolated, one-way event. This process requires three mechanisms embedded across a curriculum: eliciting student feedback, providing tools and time for processing it, and supporting students to enact changes in future work. Furthermore, feedback should shift from simply transmitting information to fostering a dialogue that builds students’ evaluative judgment over time.

Practically, educators can improve student engagement by sharing anonymized exemplars of past work alongside grading criteria before assignments are submitted. When returning work, teachers can attach a “feed-forward” prompt, asking students to identify specific actions they will take in their next submission based on the feedback they received. Brief dialogue points, such as online discussions or paired in-class reflections, can further reinforce engagement. Educators are also advised to explicitly teach the terminology they use in feedback to avoid confusion.