Feedback That Moves Learning Forward - Blog 4 of the Leveraging Deep Learning Blog Series
Written by Tania Lattanzio
“Learners need endless feedback more than they need endless teaching.”
About this series:
This blog series is based on ideas from Andrea Muller and my latest book, Leveraging Deep Learning: Strategies and Tools for Continuous Assessment of Conceptual Understanding. Each post shares practical insights and tools designed to support educators in planning for deeper learning, involving students in the assessment process, and making understanding visible in everyday teaching. I hope these reflections help spark thinking and support you in your practice.
We’ve all written it: “Well done!” “Keep going!” “Good effort.” But does that kind of feedback actually help learners move forward? Not really.
Feedback should feed forward. It should give students insight into how they’re doing and what they can do next. The best feedback is timely, specific, and focused on understanding, not just performance.
In classrooms that focus on continuous assessment, feedback isn’t just something the teacher gives. It’s a conversation. Students give and receive feedback. They reflect on it. They act on it. They use it to adjust their learning strategies.
In Leveraging Deep Learning, we highlight the power of feedback when it’s grounded in clear criteria and linked to conceptual understanding. When learners know what understanding looks like, they are better equipped to understand the feedback they receive. They’re also better prepared to give meaningful feedback to peers.
Feedback becomes even more powerful when combined with reflection. When students pause to consider what the feedback means, how it connects to their goals, and what they might do next, they take ownership of their learning process. As Dylan Wiliam (2011) states, “Feedback should cause thinking. It should be focused; it should relate to the learning goals that have been shared with the students..” This helps build metacognition and supports long-term growth.
As educators, it’s helpful to remember that feedback doesn’t have to be lengthy to be powerful. A well-timed question, a gesture, or a brief conversation can all serve as meaningful feedback moments. Creating a classroom culture that values and normalizes feedback, both giving and receiving, makes it a natural and valued part of the learning process.
The aim is not to ‘mark’ student work, but to coach the learner. Feedback isn’t about finding faults. It’s about making thinking visible and pointing toward deeper understanding.
In the book, we explore how feedback can strengthen student agency. When students co-construct criteria, assess their own work using the Rubric for Understanding, and give each other feedback using structured prompts, they build confidence in their ability to evaluate learning. They begin to see feedback not as a judgment, but as a guide. Over time, this builds assessment-capable learners students who know where they are in their learning, where they need to go, and how to get there.
And that’s the goal: students who are not only receiving feedback but actively using it to guide their next steps. When feedback is part of the culture, not an event, it shifts the role of the learner from passive receiver to active driver of their learning journey.
Helpful Hints
Anchor all feedback in the Rubric for Understanding or co-constructed criteria.
Use protocols like “I noticed / I wonder / A suggestion…” for peer feedback.
Create time for feedback and reflection, not just as an add-on but built into the lesson.
Encourage students to track their feedback and set their own goals.
Frame feedback as dialogue, not a one-way comment.
References
Wiliam, Dylan. Embedded Formative Assessment, 2nd ed. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press, 2011.
Found this article helpful? Get more of such strategies and tools for making learning visible in my book, Leveraging Deep Learning: Strategies and Tools for Continuous Assessment of Conceptual Understanding. Get the paperback in the link below: