Providing high quality feedback in a secondary classroom

This case study is written by Adam Boxer, a secondary science teacher and Head of Department. As you read this case study, reflect on how the teacher uses various approaches to make feedback effective. Take some time to think about what the teacher does, how they do it, what they might do differently and how this might influence your own practice in your own subject or context.  Feedback, perhaps more than any other teaching technique, sits on a knife edge. Without good feedback, progress is slow, stunted and piecemeal. Students will make mistakes and worse, embed those mistakes and “learn” incorrect information. Corrective feedback is therefore crucial in preventing mistakes and maximising performance and indeed is a crucial part of “deliberate practice” – or the optimised process of improving performance (see for example Ericsson, 1993). However, all that glitters is not gold, and there are vast swathes of literature showing that feedback can also impede learning. In