Embed Feedback Opportunities

Feedback is a key part of effective teaching—it helps students understand how they are doing, where they need to improve, and what steps to take next. Good feedback is clear, timely, and focused on progress. It helps students become independent learners by encouraging reflection on their work and guiding them toward their goals. 

This page explores the principles of meaningful feedback and how they can be put into practice at CBS.

General principles 

There are two main types of feedback: formative and summative.  

Formative Feedback is given during the course of study and focuses on areas where students can improve their understanding or performance. It aims to help students identify their strengths and weaknesses and suggests specific strategies for improvement. Timely formative feedback encourages students to make adjustments to their learning approach while the course is ongoing. 

Summative Feedback is typically given after the completion of a course or assessment, such as an exam, and provides an evaluation of the student’s performance during that specific event. While summative feedback is useful for providing an overall picture of achievement, its capacity to guide students towards productive learning strategies is limited, as it comes after the assessment has concluded.

While both are important, it is formative feedback — given during the course of study — that plays a crucial role in driving student learning and supporting development. To explore how formative feedback can support student learning, it is useful to consider the concept of ‘feedback for learning’ and the insights of leading educational researchers such as David Boud.

David Boud and the Ten Feedback Strategies 

David Boud is one of the most prominent educational researchers in the field of feedback. His work has had a profound impact on how feedback is viewed and utilised, with a focus on student-centric approaches that aim to enhance learning and encourage deeper engagement. 

David Boud began his career in the 1970s and has since become a leader in the field of assessment and feedback. His most influential works include Rethinking assessment in higher education (2006) and Enhancing Learning through Self-Assessment (2013). Boud is currently an Alfred Deakin Professor and Foundation Director of the Centre for Research in Assessment and Digital Learning at Deakin University, Australia, where he continues to conduct research on the areas of assessment for learning in higher education, academic formation, and workplace learning. 

In this video, Boud presents ten practical strategies for enhancing feedback in higher education. These strategies, presented at Aarhus University in 2023, are grounded in decades of research and offer actionable insights for educators aiming to make feedback more meaningful and effective for students. 

Learn More about Feedback for Learning

David Boud’s Ten Feedback Strategies

1. Have students identify and state what kind of comments they would like to get.

2. Design follow-on tasks so that students can apply information received.

3. Have students respond to information with plans for what they are going to do.

4. Have students judge their own work against criteria before they submit it.

5. Prompt peer feedback sessions that focus on producing improved work.

6. Distinguish between mark justification and feedback information when making comments.

7. Move feedback comments from late in the sequence to earlier when students have time to act on them.

8. Focus on comments for improvement rather than corrections.

9. Refer frequently to models and exemplars of good work.

10.Train students to be feedback literate (ie. know what feedback is and how they can make it work for themselves).

If you need help describing feedback activities in the Course Description, go to this guide.

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