Assessment and Feedback
Feedback That Drives Learning
Assessment and feedback are most powerful when they drive learning. Effective feedback is clear, actionable, and directly linked to what students are learning. It helps students understand how to improve and guides teachers in refining their practice.
Our First Principles
1. Clarity and Alignment
Link feedback to clearly defined knowledge and success criteria.
2. Actionable Feedback
Feedback should lead to a specific action – the exact next step for the student to take.
3. Support Self and Peer Evaluation
Use feedback to help students judge the quality of their own and others’ work.
4. Assess What Was Taught
Design assessments that are directly based on the knowledge and concepts explicitly taught.
5. Inform Teaching Decisions
Use feedback to guide your next instructional steps and respond to student learning needs.
Techniques
Checklists
Teachers use checklist feedback to provide clear, criteria-aligned guidance that helps students identify what has been met, what is missing, and what needs improvement, while strengthening self and peer assessment processes.
DIRT (Directed Improvement & Reflection Time)
DIRT (Directed Improvement and Reflection Time) is dedicated time within a lesson (or series of lessons) in which students act upon feedback and make improvements to their work.
Exit Tickets
Exit tickets are short, low-stakes reflections that allow teachers to assess student learning at the end of each lesson and respond accordingly.
Marking Codes
Marking codes are a consistent system of symbols or prompts used by teachers to quickly identify areas for improvement and support students to independently review, reflect, and improve their work during everyday learning.
Single-Point Rubric
A single-point rubric defines a clear standard of proficiency for each criterion in a central column, with blank spaces on either side for personalised feedback about what needs improvement and what exceeds expectations.
Think Pink, Go Green Feedback
Actionable, feed-forward feedback enables students to understand their learning, address misconceptions, and develop the skills needed for continued progress.
Whole Class Feedback
Whole class feedback is a strategy where teachers identify trends across student work, such as strengths, misconceptions and errors, and then give feedback to the entire class rather than correcting each piece of work individually.
