The Lecturer's Re-entry Plan: Designing an Encouraging First Week of Teaching

<p>Feedback has one job: to change what a student does next. Anything that only changes how a student feels about you is decoration, however well meant.</p> <p>The distinction matters because generous feedback that praises without specifying is the most common form of feedback, and it is close to useless. The student leaves feeling good and doing the same thing.</p> <h3>Four kinds of feedback, in order of usefulness</h3> <ul> <li><strong>Feed-up.</strong> Where does this work sit in the course, and what does the examiner or the next task demand? This answers the question students most want answered: is this what you wanted? Put it first, in one sentence.</li> <li><strong>Feed-back.</strong> The specific gap. Not you did not analyse enough. The method for handling the missing observation is absent, and without it the estimate is not interpretable.</li> <li><strong>Feed-forward.</strong> The specific next action. On your next problem set, state the assumption before using it. Put the assumption in a box at the top of your answer.</li> <li><strong>Self-assessment.</strong> What you noticed yourself doing, and what you will change. Make the student write it. A student who writes the next step acts on it far more often than one who is told.</li> </ul> <p>Order matters: feed-up first, because students who do not know the goal cannot use the gap.</p> <h3>When to give it</h3> <table><thead><tr> <th>Work type</th><th>When feedback arrives</th><th>Medium</th><th>Turnaround</th><th>What the student must do with it</th> </tr></thead><tbody> <tr><td>Weekly warm-up</td><td>Next session</td><td>Spoken, 1 sentence each</td><td>24 hours</td><td>Correct the wrong answer in their notes</td></tr> <tr><td>Draft</td><td>Within a week of submission</td><td>Annotated comments plus 5-minute voice note on tricky points</td><td>7 days</td><td>Write a 100-word plan addressing each comment</td></tr> <tr><td>Final piece</td><td>After marking, before the next submission</td><td>Marked script plus published sample</td><td>10 to 14 days</td><td>Carry comments into the next task</td></tr> <tr><td>Group task</td><td>Group report and individual reflection</td><td>Group marks in the session, individual comments in writing</td><td>10 days</td><td>Individual reflection, 300 words, no group input</td></tr> <tr><td>Clinic question</td><td>Same session</td><td>Spoken</td><td>Immediate</td><td>Try again there and then</td></tr> <tr><td>Mid-term</td><td>14 days</td><td>Written, per-question method comments</td><td>14 days</td><td>One-page remediation plan</td></tr> <tr><td>Peer review</td><td>Before the final version</td><td>Written, structured template</td><td>7 days</td><td>Accept or reject each peer comment and justify</td></tr> </tbody></table> <h3>The language of useful comments</h3> <table><thead><tr> <th>Instead of</th><th>Write</th><th>Why</th> </tr></thead><tbody> <tr><td>This is not very clear</td><td>The reader cannot tell whether X or Y is the outcome here. State it in the first clause</td><td>Actionable</td></tr> <tr><td>You did not show enough understanding</td><td>You applied the method but did not state why it applies to this case. Add one sentence of justification</td><td>Names the missing move</td></tr> <tr><td>Interesting idea</td><td>The idea that the effect depends on volume, not price, is the one that makes your conclusion. Develop it</td><td>Praise that points at the thing to repeat</td></tr> <tr><td>Try harder</td><td>Do one more pass checking units on every line</td><td>Gives a procedure, not a exhortation</td></tr> <tr><td>Read the handbook</td><td>The handbook asks for the limit of your confidence, which you have not given. Add the range</td><td>Removes the vague reference</td></tr> <tr><td>Good work</td><td>The structure of the third section is the clearest in the set. Use it as the model for section 1</td><td>Names the transferable feature</td></tr> </tbody></table>