October 30, 2025

Five Common Feedback Faults and Fixes

We know that feedback is a crucial element in learning, especially when learning is challenging, multi-staged, and requires practice and application. Effective feedback reinforces progress, clarifies crucial learning components, lights the path forward, and propels persistence.

However, feedback that fuels learning requires a careful combination of art and skill. It must be provided in close enough proximity to learning efforts for learners to recall their thinking and actions during learning attempts. Feedback needs to be specific enough for students to understand its importance and potential impact. Further, feedback that reinforces learning needs to be objective, not colored by judgement or assumptions. Finally, the feedback we provide must give the learner information they need to take the next steps in learning.

While these elements of feedback may seem clear—even obvious—feedback often falls short in its ability to motivate and support learning when educators fail to heed several factors. Let’s explore five of these common mistakes and how to fix them.

Mistake #1: Overloading the amount of feedback. We might think that students need to be informed of everything in the work they did worthy of note or in need of improvement. However, learners are limited in the amount of working memory they can manage at any time. Providing students with too much feedback can lead to students ignoring all or the most important feedback we provide.

Fix: Focus on the elements of student work that, if adjusted, would make the greatest difference. Even though we can provide extensive feedback, overloading will not improve learning. If we are concerned that a parent or others might criticize us for not catching every error, we might indicate with our feedback that it is targeted and not all-inclusive.

Mistake #2: Neglecting to connect feedback to learning goals. The presence of learning goals helps us and our students to focus, measure progress, and understand what still needs to be learned. Obviously, the most powerful learning goals include the participation of students in their development and can play a significant role in stimulating and tracking learning progress. Helping students to see progress and understand what lies ahead are important elements of feedback with impact.

Fix: Keep learning goals visible and active in feedback conversations. If established learning goals seem too far off, we may need to break down next steps to help students see how progress can be achieved, even if there is significant distance yet to be traveled.

Mistake #3: Feedback is overweighted with negative information. When students hear what feels like mostly bad news, they can become discouraged and give up rather than use the information to adjust and improve. Feedback that has a productive impact is carefully weighted to provide an accurate picture, while instilling hope for success.

Fix: We can choose our words and focus with the student’s perspective and perception in mind. We gain little by having students feel “buried.” Students also need to hear where they are making progress and what they are doing well. While we may need to share information that suggests the need for improvement, we can do so while sharing our confidence that the student will be successful and that we are committed to helping them to find their way forward.

Mistake #4: Feedback conversations do not include student response opportunities. Telling students where they are showing progress and sharing areas in need of improvement are only parts of effective feedback interactions. Unless students contribute to the conversation, they are unlikely to feel ownership for the feedback they receive. Further, we are not likely to know what students understand, how they react to what they hear, and whether they are committed to using the feedback we provide.

Fix: Give students ample opportunities to share their understanding, areas of confusion, insights about their learning, and to commit to applying the feedback they receive. Depending on the nature of situation we might even invite students to share their perspectives and ideas before we share feedback. In any case, once we have provided feedback, we need to give students opportunities to reflect and clarify what they have heard and discuss what they will do with it.

Mistake #5: Failing to follow up after providing feedback. We might think that once we have provided students with feedback on their learning attempts that we can move on to other things. However, students may find that what they try following our feedback isn’t working, they fail to recall what they heard, or they encounter a challenge that was not discussed in the feedback conversation. Failing to check in and reinforce the feedback we share risks compromising the impact of our efforts and could result in students giving up in frustration.

Fix: Make a mental or physical note to follow up and reinforce feedback as students attempt to implement what they have learned. Once students have tried to apply the feedback they received, we might briefly touch base to see if they have any questions, inquire if they are making progress, and observe the results of new learning attempts. Our check-in not only helps to determine the impact of our feedback, but it also sends a message to students that we are interested and ready to continue to support their learning.

Feedback is a powerful tool to support learning. However, it requires more than telling students where they have fallen short and what they need to do to improve. The best feedback is a conversation that builds understanding, instills hope, and stimulates further learning.