Targeted, prompt feedback is timely and specific, giving students an idea of what they did well and how they can improve in relation to the learning criteria.

Verbal or written responses, and nonverbal gestures are all forms of feedback and may be formal or informal, simple or complex.

Awareness of the different forms of feedback and what each accomplishes can enhance instruction and impact student learning outcomes.

• Feedback is classified by timing (immediate or delayed).
• Immediate feedback is most effective in supporting the acquisition of new information and immediate recall (Cohen, 1985; Gaynor, 1981).
• Delayed feedback is more effective for supporting the application and generalization of previously learned or more complex processes (Gaynor, 1981; Cohen, 1985).
• Feedback may also be classified by form (validating and corrective). The form may also be concise or elaborative. 
• Corrective feedback, coupled with frequent opportunities for students to respond, improved generalization of skills and higher retention rates than corrective feedback without opportunities for frequent student responses (Barbetta et al., 1993).

Researchers to Consult

Greg Ashman

Henry Roediger

Jeffrey Karpicke

• When students are learning new material, provide immediate feedback. Validate correct responses and provide simple corrective feedback, verbal or visual, when needed.
• Feedback may be more delayed when students are applying known skills or working at higher levels of complexity. Based on the nature of the error, adaptive feedback may be more effective in supporting corrections. 
• Provide students opportunities to practice applying corrective feedback to generate the appropriate response.