Two blog posts ago, I shared my early spring semester plans for giving students effective feedback and promoting their feedback literacy in an early college calculus course. Going into that semester, I realized that to promote student feedback literacy, it would help to know what levels of feedback literacy they had. In the previous post, I shared a summary of student feedback literacy levels based on my implementation of Dawson et al.’s (2023) feedback literacy behavior scale (FLBS). Their scale contains five factors: (1) Seek feedback information; (2) Make sense of information; (3) Use feedback information; (4) Provide feedback information; and (5) Manage affect. After analyzing students’ self-reported rankings on each factor, I found that they typically have no issues with making sense of feedback and managing affect. However, there was some evidence the students needed guidance in seeking feedback and putting the feedback to good use. The FLBS results helped me understand my students’ current levels of feedback literacy. After documenting their skill levels, I revisited my plans from the beginning of the semester and developed strategies for meeting my students where they were.

The purpose of this blog post is to share the first of two feedback-promoting strategies I used to improve students’ literacy and how the strategy has played out so far this semester. To guide this work, I have been using the following definition of feedback literacy: “the understandings, capacities and dispositions needed to make sense of information and use it to enhance work or learning strategies” (Carless and Boud 2018, 1316).

Strategy 1: Setting Feedback Expectations for Students in your Specific Course 

I call the first feedback-promoting strategy setting feedback expectations for students in your specific course. To implement this strategy, the teacher must understand their students’ feedback literacy and what quality feedback looks like, specifically in the disciplinary content they teach. 

Discussing with Students

After my students completed the FLBS, I analyzed their responses. In the next class session, we discussed their thoughts about completing the FLBS. I guided this discussion to focus on the specifics of what quality feedback entails and how using it appropriately can support their learning. To anchor our discussion, I shared the following graphic from the City University of New York School of Professional Studies (CUNY SPS) OpenLab. 

This particular resource focuses on giving feedback during the writing process. I asked my students to read its contents, and then asked them how this guidance could be adapted for their learning in our math course. I reminded them of the FLBS they recently completed and the definition of feedback literacy: “the understandings, capacities and dispositions needed to make sense of information and use it to enhance work or learning strategies.” We discussed what we could specifically revise in this resource to adapt it for feedback practices and learning in our course. These revisions often went beyond just giving feedback and accounted for what the student receiving it should do.  

The table below gives a few examples of revisions we made. I paraphrase each revision based on notes I took during the class discussion. 

This SUNY SPS OpenLab graphic and many other peer feedback resources focus on writing, and it was valuable to discuss how to adapt this resource to fit what students are asked to do in an undergraduate math course. As seen in the revisions above, students gave evidence of understanding the importance of giving and receiving feedback in our class. The conversation built on this recognition as we discussed how to use feedback to improve learning mathematics and communicating our understanding to others. During our semester, students often work in pairs and small groups, and we discussed how they should actively seek out, give, and use feedback in these spaces. After our discussion, I also considered how many of the feedback-promoting practices we discussed would help these students prepare for the upcoming summative assessment. 

Implementation

Since that discussion, I have attempted to make feedback practices and feedback literacy a theme throughout the semester. Before students work in small groups, I ask for a student to remind the class of what quality feedback looks like. These gentle reminders seem to promote communication and student ownership of feedback given and received.  

Students in previous iterations of this class completed a short writing project very similar to the one reported earlier in this blog. This project asks students to explain fundamental concepts of calculus to a non-expert audience in the form of a letter. This semester, I revised the guidelines for this writing project to include a requirement for peer review and feedback. Students were paired together and exchanged written feedback on a draft of their letters. In their final written submission, they shared how the feedback given during peer review helped them improve their letter. Based on the explanations given, it appeared that students recognized the benefit of seeking out feedback from their peers.  

Conclusion 

Students responded positively to discussing the importance of feedback, feedback practices, and what quality feedback looks like related to learning mathematics. Sharing the “How to give good peer feedback” resource helped structure a whole class discussion about feedback in the discipline of mathematics. How might you adapt feedback-promoting resources such as this to the content and settings in which you teach? My students quickly spoke to the connections between feedback on writing and feedback on thinking and work in mathematics. 

In the next blog post, I will share the second feedback-promoting strategy we are using this semester. It involves making learning expectations explicit to students. In working on feedback literacy this semester, I have been considering how well institutions of higher education prepare students for their post-graduation lives and professions. I believe feedback literacy is an essential part of this preparation and look forward to making strides in this regard with my students. 

References 

Adelman, Clifford. 2015. To Imagine a Verb: The Language and Syntax of Learning Outcomes Statements. Occasional Paper No. 24. University of Illinois and Indiana University: National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment (NILOA). 

Carless, David, and David Boud. 2018. “The Development of Student Feedback Literacy: Enabling Uptake of Feedback.” Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education 43 (8): 1315–25. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2018.1463354.  

City University of New York School of Professional Studies (CUNY SPS) OpenLab. 2025. “How to Give Good Peer Feedback.” April 1, 2025. https://openlab.sps.cuny.edu/knowledge-bank/how-to-give-good-peer-review-feedback/. 

Dawson, Phillip, Zi Yan, Anastasiya Lipnevich, Joanna Tai, David Boud, and Paige Mahoney. 2023. “Measuring What Learners Do in Feedback: The Feedback Literacy Behaviour Scale.” Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2023.2240983. 

Additional Reading  

Driscoll, Amy, Swarup Wood, Dan Shapiro, Nelson Graff. 2021. Advancing Assessment for Student Success: Supporting Learning by Creating Connections Across Assessment, Teaching, Curriculum, and Cocurriculum in Collaboration with Our Colleagues and Our Students. 1st ed. New York: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003442899. 

About the Author 

Aaron Trocki is an Associate Professor of Mathematics at Elon University. He is the CEL Scholar for 2023–2025 and is focusing on models of assessment and feedback outside of traditional grading assumptions and approaches.     

How to Cite This Post 

Trocki, Aaron. 2025. “Implementing Effective Feedback Practices: Strategy One.” Center for Engaged Learning (blog), Elon University. May 20, 2025. https://www.centerforengagedlearning.org/implementing-effective-feedback-practices-strategy-one.