Instructional Feedback: The Power, the Promise, the Practice

Implement evidence-based feedback practices that move learners forward

Feedback is essential to successful instruction and improved student performance, but learners often dread and dismiss feedback and its effectiveness can vary. Thus, sharing intentions, clarifying success criteria, knowing what type of feedback to provide and when, and activating students as owners of their learning are essential feedback functions.

Instructional Feedback presents a comprehensive summary of the most recent research on instructional feedback and describes its successful implementation. With a focus on evidence-based approaches adapted to specific contexts, the authors use common classroom situations to demystify feedback and place it within a broad instructional context, along with definitions, characteristics, and precautions about its effect on students’ emotions and behaviors. Inside you’ll find:

• Coverage of all grades and concentrations, including math, language arts, music, art, and science
• Peer feedback, self-assessment, and subject-specific nuances
• Student and teacher examples of feedback and suggestions for improvement

Engaging and concise, Instructional Feedback discusses why feedback is so powerful, how it is promising, and what it looks like in practice.

Jeffrey Smith is Professor and formerly Dean of the College of Education at the University of Otago in New Zealand.  He earned his bachelor’s degree from Princeton and his PhD from the University of Chicago. He taught at Rutgers University in New Jersey for 29 years where he was Chair of the Educational Psychology Department.  He moved to New Zealand in 2005 and has been there ever since.  While teaching at Rutgers, Jeff served as a consultant to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where he was the Head of their Office of Research and Evaluation.  He has written over 100 research articles and 10 books on assessment and the psychology of aesthetics, including being co-editor of The Cambridge Handbook on Instructional Feedback.

Anastasiya Lipnevich is Principal Measurement Scientist at the National Board of Medical Examiners, where she leads work on formative assessment and the learning sciences. Prior to joining NBME, she served as Full Professor of Educational Psychology at Queens College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, where she continues her academic affiliation and supervision of doctoral students. She holds a PhD in Educational Psychology, along with Master′s degrees in Education, Clinical Psychology, Italian Language and Literature, and Counseling Psychology. She is a Fellow of the Institute for Advanced Study of the University of Surrey, UK, and has held visiting professorships at the University of Trento, Italy; the University of Konstanz, Germany; the University of Otago, New Zealand; the University of Sydney, Australia; and the National Institute of Education, Singapore. Anastasiya is co-author or co-editor of four books on feedback and assessment, including The Cambridge Handbook of Instructional Feedback and Instructional Feedback: The Power, the Promise, the Practice, with two more currently under contract. Her research focuses on instructional feedback, formative assessment, and the role of psychosocial characteristics in academic and life success, and her work has been recognized with several awards and honors.

Thomas R. Guskey, PhD, is Professor Emeritus in the College of Education at the University of Kentucky. A graduate of the University of Chicago’s renowned Measurement, Evaluation, and Statistical Analysis (MESA) program, he began his career in education as a middle school teacher, served as an administrator in the Chicago Public Schools, and was the first Director of the Center for the Improvement of Teaching and Learning, a national educational research center. He is the author/editor of twenty-seven books and over three hundred articles published in prominent research journals as well as Educational Leadership, Kappan, and The School Administrator.

Dr. Guskey served on the Policy Research Team of the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future, and on the task force to develop the National Standards for Professional Development. He was named a Fellow in the American Educational Research Association and was awarded the Association’s prestigious Relating Research to Practice Award. He was also awarded Learning Forward′s Outstanding Contribution to the Field Award and Phi Delta Kappan′s Distinguished Educator Award. Perhaps most unique, in the 158-year history of his undergraduate institution, Thiel College, he is one of only three graduates to receive the Outstanding Alumnus Award and be inducted into the Thiel College Athletic Hall of Fame.

His most recent books include Implementing Mastery Learning (2023), Instructional Feedback: The Power, the Promise, the Practice (with Smith & Lipnevich, 2023); Get Set, Go! Creating Successful Grading and Reporting Systems (2020), What We Know About Grading (with Brookhart, 2019), and On Your Mark: Challenging the Conventions of Grading and Reporting (2015). He may be contacted by email at guskey@uky.edu, Twitter at @tguskey, or at www.tguskey.com.