High Leverage Feedback ​

Principles for effective and efficient feedback to students

Feedback is arguably one of the most important yet most challenging aspects of teaching to master. If I could have back the amount of time I spent as a trainee teacher trying to conquer effective feedback…I might just be able to mark the set of Year 10 assessments that are sitting in my car for their daily trip from school to home and back again.

When it comes to feedback, I’ve tried it all. Lengthy, individualised written comments. Coded marking. Whole-class feedback. DIRT tasks. It took me a good few years to realise that no single type of feedback works for all of us, in all contexts, all of the time. What I have discovered, however, is that there are core principles that we can all apply to ensure that feedback is as high-leverage as possible, no matter the context. This discovery was made through both my own experience in the classroom and by reading Bambrick-Santoyo’s FANTASTIC book ‘Leverage Leadership 2.0’, which completely changed my outlook on feedback. The research and ideas discussed in this book have been transformative to me as a teacher and a leader. So, if there’s anything you find useful throughout this blog post – all credit goes to this book. 

What is ‘high leverage’ feedback?

In short, high leverage feedback is feedback that has the greatest impact in the shortest time; it is using feedback to maximum advantage. And there are a set of core principles that can make our feedback as high leverage as possible.

Principle 1: Efficient data gathering

To make a judgement on the performance of a student, we must first gather data. However, there can sometimes be the misconception that data means just figures and numbers, such as scores in a recent assessment. But this is not always the case: data can be observational. Data can be finding patterns and trends based on what you see. And, in fact, it is this observational data which I would argue to be the most rich and useful to the feedback process.

For our data gathering to be effective, it must first be frequent enough. If we only truly observe student performance a few times a year, it is incredibly difficult to coach them to improve. Instead, we may find ourselves merely evaluating: making a judgement on their performance based on a limited data set. And evaluating does not lead to improvement - coaching does.

Now, here’s where the ever-present, number one issue in our profession springs up: time. How can we make more time? The answer is – we can’t. But what we can do is capitalise on the time we already have. We can use live marking and purposeful circulation to make the most of the time students spend in the classroom – gather data while they are working. Not only does this lessen the pressure to spend time gathering data outside of our teaching hours, but it also means we are more likely to be able to respond quickly to misconceptions. Which leads us to principle two…

Principle 2: Immediate responsiveness​

Bambrick-Santoyo (2018) suggest that the way to make learning time more efficient is to ‘spend less time on what students already know, and more on what they need’. In other words, it is essential that feedback is delivered in a timely manner so that lesson time can be used to maximum advantage – if we wait to deliver feedback, we are creating a dangerous opportunity for misconceptions to become entrenched.

This is, again, where live marking and feedback become so useful. Circulate the room while students are working; have one-to-one conversations to correct individual errors; deliver whole-class feedback to address widespread errors. Some of the richest feedback discussions I have had have taken place immediately after, or even during, students’ work. This means there is virtually no time wasted between noticing the error and giving the feedback.

Of course, live feedback is not always suitable or possible. Another potential antidote to ‘the time issue’ is sample marking followed by whole-class feedback. We don’t always need to mark every book in depth to get a taste of what the misconceptions/errors are or how improvements can be made. There are, of course, limitations to this method (as with everything) but it is certainly worth a try.

Principle 3: Savvy action setting​

Principle three is all about the next step: once you’ve gathered data, when you are responding as immediately as possible, how do you ensure action steps are high leverage?

Savvy action steps consider the following questions:

- Which piece of feedback will allow this student to develop most quickly?​

We need to consider the learning trajectory of the pupil/class, and our subject knowledge is imperative here. As subject experts, we need to determine exactly which action needs to come first to make the biggest difference to students’ performance now. To give an English example, students need to be able to articulate what happens in a text and the key ideas before they analyse in detail the choices a writer has made. So I wouldn’t deliver intricate feedback on the impact of the motif of light in ‘A Christmas Carol’ to symbolise Scrooge’s journey to redemption, for example, before I ensure that students can articulate what ‘redemption’ actually is.

- What micro, bitesize action steps can I give to ensure incremental progress?

Something we must remember when giving feedback is cognitive overload. Whilst it might be tempting to want to fix everything all at once – this is impossible. Smaller, bitesize action steps have been proven to be more effective in the feedback process (EEF), and thus we must ensure we aim for incremental and sustainable progress.

- What needs to happen and, more importantly, how does this need to happen?

Once we have decided which piece of feedback will lead to quick and incremental improvement, it is important our action steps are incredibly specific. For example, telling a student they need to make their creative writing more engaging is futile. How will they do this? By embedding a motif to build intrigue? By subtly crafting a mysterious character? We must remember that students are novices. If they knew how to fix their work, they would. We have to coach them by presenting and modelling very specific action steps. Otherwise, it is likely our ‘feedback’ will be fruitless. So, use guided practice to coach students on how to improve, explicitly narrate how to address the error, and then give students time to practise for themselves.

Principle 4: Continual monitoring

In order for our feedback to fully ‘land’ with students, we must continually monitor their work after the feedback has been delivered. It is unlikely that the error or misconception we have addressed will be permanently fixed after just one session of feedback. We must continually monitor whether we are seeing the improvement we hoped to see. We might find we need to simply remind students of the feedback, or praise them when they have put the feedback into action, in order to embed it further. Sometimes, if our feedback hasn’t led to the improvement we hoped, we might need to ‘go back to the drawing board’ and start the cycle again in terms of gathering data and coming to a judgement on what a savvy action step looks like. Regardless, it is imperative we continually monitor so that we can remain responsive and adaptive to emerging needs within our students.

Principle 5: Humans first

The fifth and final principle of effective feedback is to remember that we are dealing with human beings. All humans are fragile and vulnerable – small humans even more so. It is therefore paramount that we deliver feedback with empathy. The Education Endowment Foundation report that it is as important to tell students what they got right as it is to tell them what they got wrong. This, of course, makes sense. What human wants only criticism and not praise? We must also remember that human beings rarely make an effort to do something badly. If students knew how to make their work perfect, they would. So deliver feedback with kindness and empathy.

On the other hand, we should strike a balance between compassion and clarity: don’t let being ‘too kind’ get in the way of being honest. Honest feedback that will ultimately lead to improvement is kind, in the long run.