Medical vs. Post-Mortem

Dylan Wiliam often compares feedback to medical intervention.

• Post-Mortem: Tells you why the patient died (Backward-looking).

• Medical: Tells you how to get healthy (Forward-looking). Grading is often a "post-mortem" it judges what has already happened. Feedback must be a "medical" a recipe for future action.

The Goal of Feedback

Teachers often fall into the trap of fixing the work (e.g., correcting every spelling error). This improves the document, but it does not necessarily improve the learner. The ultimate goal of feedback is to improve the student, giving them the skills to do better on a future task they have not yet attempted.