Preventing Feedback Fizzle

Feedback is certainly about saying or writing helpful, learning-focused comments. But that's only part of it. What happens beforehand? What happens afterward?

Feedback that's helpful and learning-focused fits into a context. Before a teacher gives feedback, students need to know the learning target so they have a purpose for using the feedback they receive. Say you're trying to teach students how to identify the main idea in expository text. If a student isn't trying to learn how to do this with the text he or she is working on, your feedback about emphasizing a certain point (such as, "Tell us more about the Articles of Confederation") will seem like something you want the student to do to comply with your wishes, instead of something the student needs to learn (such as why the Articles of Confederation are so important to the main idea of the text).