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Introduction

 

Introduction

The feedback that we get from students is that they want more feedback on their writing! However, giving effective feedback about the communication aspects of an assessment task is a challenging issue. Feedback on academic communication skills might be unfamiliar and many academics make the point that they are not English teachers.

This resource outlines the benefits of effective feedback on students’ writing and gives you three practical feedback strategies that focus on building students’ academic and communication skills.

Issues

Teachers
  • Feedback is costly: it involves time and effort
  • Feedback adds pressure to staff workloads
  • Students often don’t look at it
     
Students
  • Feedback is not understood by students
  • Some students may be dissatisfied with feedback they receive
  • Feedback is often given too late to help students improve

 

Giving feedback can be problematic and its effectiveness is related to:

  • the type of feedback given
  • how it is given
  • when it is given

Students need to know:

  • what they have to do
  • what standard is expected
  • what they can do to improve