Courtney Burgess

GRADING PRINCIPALS
Completion & Feedback | Effective Feedback | Modeling How To Use Feedback

Effective Feedback Completion & Feedback

Effective feedback is more than
just giving a student a number
out of a number and letting that
be all. It says to the student
"Someone read my work, cared
enough to think about it and
respond" validating themselves
as learners. Effective feedback
is provided to students in a
timely manner that says more
than just right or wrong, is
targeted to how close the
individual is to meeting the
goals, is able to be addressed
and implemented, and tied to
the goals of the assignment.
Modeling &
Importance of
Effective Feedback
Grading formative work based on completion is important in the
education process. A central question that I think about when
grading formative is, “Why grade everything students do while
they are still learning?” I break grading into three categories. Non-
graded formative, formative, and summative work. Non-graded
formative work’s primary goal is to inform me of my teaching and
where I need to take time on. Graded formative, while informative
to me as a teacher, has a larger role for the student, to know where
they need to focus as students. The grade for this type of formative
work is based on effort and completion but as the teacher, I will
provide effective feedback to assist in their learning. An important
caveat is to not let the students realize that some of the formative
work will not be graded in a numerical sense. As an example,
during my internship, I realized very quickly that many students
chief, and sometimes only motivation, is to complete the work, get
the grade and do as little deeper thinking as possible. The idea is
that they are "playing school." A way to combat this is by providing
effective feedback to students.


When thinking about feedback,

everything is centered around
modeling. Helping students use
the feedback that I am taking
the time to give them. Having
clear directions, rubrics,
feedback notes, redo
assignments for more practice,
helps student and parents with
grades. When a parent, or even
student, becomes upset about
whatever grade was given on
an assignment, I am able to cite
my reasons for the grade clearly
Figure 1: This chart is from Susan Brookhart’s book, How to Give Effective Feedback to Students. I used to to
via the guidelines that I have inform my future feedback to students in both the Social Studies and English disciplines.

already set in place hopefully

creating little room for
questioning after an 1
explanation is provided.