Types of Feedback!

The different types of feedback listed below would be appropriate at various 
times depending on the intended goal.   

Types of Feedback
Effective
 Goal is to get student to internalize the effective feedback to use the suggested strategies
independently on future work.
 Feedback that is intended to be used by the learner to independently move their reasoning to the
next level.
 Criteria-based phrases are used to describe the strengths and weaknesses of the learner’s work.
 Limits feedback to one or two traits/aspect of quality at a time.
 Students should have an opportunity to “redo” their work based on the effective feedback.
 “I agree with the pattern that you have identified in the table. I am not convinced that the rule you
wrote works for all the values in the table. How could you prove this?”
Descriptive
 Goal is to improve student achievement by telling the learner how to move forward in the learning
process.
 Feedback that is intended to tell the learner what needs to be improved.
 Feedback isn’t as effective in getting students to move forward in the learning process.
 “You accurately found the number of students in 4th grade who said chocolate ice-cream was their
favorite. You now need to divide this number by the total number of students to get the percent
who said chocolate ice-cream was their favorite.”
Evaluative
 Goal is to measure student achievement with a score or a grade.
 Feedback that is intended to summarize student achievement.
 It does not give guidance on how to improve the learner’s reasoning.
 Since it is not intended to move students forward in the learning process, it can be given on
summative assessments.
 “Your explanation of your work is the best that you have done. Nice use of sequence words in
your explanation.”
Motivational
 Goal is to make the learner feel good.
 Feedback that is intended to encourage and support the learner.
 It does not give guidance on how to improve the learner’s reasoning.
 Since it is not intended to move students forward in the learning process, it can be given on
summative assessments.
 “I like how you completed the assignment.”

The Milwaukee Mathematics Partnership (MMP), an initiative of the Milwaukee Partnership Academy (MPA),
is supported with funding from the National Science Foundation under Grant No. EHR-0314898