assignment feedback comments examples pdf

51 Constructive Feedback Examples for Students

Constructive feedback is feedback that helps students learn and grow.

Even though it highlights students’ weaknesses, it is not negative feedback because it has a purpose. It is designed to help them identify areas for improvement.

It serves both as an example of positive reinforcement and a reminder that there is always room for further improvement. Studies show that students generally like feedback that points them in the right direction and helps them to improve. It can also increase motivation for students.

Why Give Constructive Feedback?

Constructive feedback is given to help students improve. It can help people develop a growth mindset by helping them understand what they need to do to improve.

It can also help people to see that their efforts are paying off and that they can continue to grow and improve with continued effort.

Additionally, constructive feedback helps people to feel supported and motivated to keep working hard. It shows that we believe in their ability to grow and succeed and that we are willing to help them along the way.

How to Give Constructive Feedback

Generally, when giving feedback, it’s best to:

• Make your feedback specific to the student’s work
• Point out areas where the student showed effort and where they did well
• Offer clear examples of how to improve
• Be positive about the student’s prospects if they put in the hard work to improve
• Encourage the student to ask questions if they don’t understand your feedback

Furthermore, it is best to follow up with students to see if they have managed to implement the feedback provided.

General Constructive Feedback Examples for Students

The below examples are general templates that need to be edited so they are specific to the student’s work.

1. You are on the right track. By starting to study for the exam earlier, you may be able to retain more knowledge on exam day.

2. I have seen your improvement over time. As a next step, it is a good idea to…

3. You have improved a lot and should start to look towards taking on harder tasks for the future to achieve more self-development.

4. You have potential and should work on your weaknesses to achieve better outcomes. One area for improvement is…

5. Keep up the good work! You will see better results in the future if you make the effort to attend our study groups more regularly.

6. You are doing well, but there is always room for improvement. Try these tips to get better results: …

7. You have made some good progress, but it would be good to see you focusing harder on the assignment question so you don’t misinterpret it next time.

8. Your efforts are commendable, but you could still do better if you provide more specific examples in your explanations.

9. You have done well so far, but don’t become complacent – there is always room for improvement! I have noticed several errors in your notes, including…

10. It is great that you are trying your best, but don’t stop here – keep pushing yourself to get even better results. It would be good to see you editing your work to remove the small errors creeping into your work…

11. You have put in a lot of hard work, and it is starting to show. One area for improvement is your tone of voice, which sometimes comes across too soft. Don’t be afraid to project your voice next time.

12. You are making good progress, but don’t forget to focus on your weaknesses too. One weakness to focus on is…

13. Your efforts are commendable, but it would have been good to have seen you focus throughout as your performance waned towards the end of the session.

15. While your work is good, I feel you are becoming complacent – keep looking for ways to improve. For example, it would be good to see you concentrating harder on providing critique of the ideas explored in the class.

16. It is great that you are trying your best, but don’t stop here – keep pushing yourself to get even better results! Try to improve your handwriting by slowing down and focusing on every single letter.

17. You have put in a lot of hard work, and it is starting to show. Keep up the good work and you will see your grades slowly grow more and more. I’d like to see you improving your vocabulary for future pieces.

18. You are making good progress, but don’t forget to focus on your weaknesses too. One weakness to focus on is…

19. You have potential and should work on your using more appropriate sources to achieve better outcomes. As a next step, it is a good idea to…

Constructive Feedback for an Essay

1. Your writing style is good but you need to use more academic references in your paragraphs.

2. While you have reached the required word count, it would be good to focus on making sure every paragraph addresses the essay question.

3. You have a good structure for your essay, but you could improve your grammar and spelling.

4. You have made some good points, but you could develop them further by using more examples.

5. Your essay is well-written, but it would be helpful to provide more analysis of the topic.

6. You have answered the question well, but you could improve your writing style by being more concise.

7. Excellent job! You have covered all the key points and your writing is clear and concise.

8. There are a few errors in your essay, but overall it is well-written and easy to understand.

9. There are some mistakes in terms of grammar and spelling, but you have some good ideas worth expanding on.

10. Your essay is well-written, but it needs more development in terms of academic research and evidence.

11. You have done a great job with what you wrote, but you missed a key part of the essay question.

12. The examples you used were interesting, but you could have elaborated more on their relevance to the essay.

13. There are a few errors in terms of grammar and spelling, but your essay is overall well-constructed.

14. Your essay is easy to understand and covers all the key points, but you could use more evaluative language to strengthen your argument.

15. You have provided a good thesis statement , but the examples seem overly theoretical. Are there some practical examples that you could provide?

Constructive Feedback for Student Reports

1. You have worked very hard this semester. Next semester, work on being more consistent with your homework.

2. You have improved a lot this semester, but you need to focus on not procrastinating.

3. You are doing well in most subjects, but you could improve your grades by paying more attention in class and completing all your homework.

4. You are doing well in most subjects, but you could still improve your grades by studying more and asking for help when you don’t understand something.

5. You have shown great improvement this semester, keep up the good work! However, you might want to focus on improving your test scores by practicing more.

6. You have made some good progress this semester, but you need to continue working hard if you want to get good grades next year when the standards will rise again.

7. Next semester, focus on completing all your homework on time and paying more attention in class.

8. You have worked hard this semester, but you could still improve your grades by taking your time rather than racing through the work.

9. Next semester, focus on completing all your homework in advance so you have time to check it over before submission.

10. While you usually understand the instructions, don’t forget to ask for help when you don’t understand something rather than guessing.

11. You have shown great improvement this semester, but you need to focus some more on being self-motivated rather than relying on me to keep you on task.

Constructive feedback on Homework

1. While most of your homework is great, you missed a few points in your rush to complete it. Next time, slow down and make sure your work is thorough.

2. You put a lot of effort into your homework, and it shows. However, make sure to proofread your work for grammar and spelling mistakes.

3. You did a great job on this assignment, but try to be more concise in your writing for future assignments.

4. This homework is well-done, but you could have benefited from more time spent on research.

5. You have a good understanding of the material, but try to use more examples in your future assignments.

6. You completed the assignment on time and with great accuracy. I noticed you didn’t do the extension tasks. I’d like to see you challenging yourself in the future.

Related Articles

• Examples of Feedback for Teachers
• 75 Formative Assessment Examples

Giving and receiving feedback is an important part of any learning process. All feedback needs to not only grade work, but give advice on next steps so students can learn to be lifelong learners. By providing constructive feedback, we can help our students to iteratively improve over time. It can be challenging to provide useful feedback, but by following the simple guidelines and examples outlined in this article, I hope you can provide comments that are helpful and meaningful.

Chris Drew (PhD)

Dr. Chris Drew is the founder of the Helpful Professor. He holds a PhD in education and has published over 20 articles in scholarly journals. He is the former editor of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education. [Image Descriptor: Photo of Chris]

• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ 5 Top Tips for Succeeding at University
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ 50 Durable Goods Examples
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ 100 Consumer Goods Examples
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ 30 Globalization Pros and Cons

2 thoughts on “51 Constructive Feedback Examples for Students”

Very helpful to see so much great developmental feedback with so many different examples.

Great examples of constructive feedback, also has reinforced on the current approach i take.

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Feedback on your assignments: what it is and how to use it

This guide explains how to use your tutor's feedback so that you understand your grade and how to improve your academic performance..

• Understand your strengths and weaknesses

When you get your assignments back from your tutor, you will probably initially focus on the grade you have received.

However, your tutor will have given you useful and well thought-out feedback, with the purpose of a) helping you understand the grade and b) providing you with ideas for how to improve in future assignments. It is important that you make good use of this feedback to help you understand your strengths and weaknesses and what you need to do to improve on your grade.

There are three key things you need to do in order to maximise the usefulness of your tutor feedback:

• Understand the feedback : look at all the feedback provided (sometimes there are comments on your script as well as the overall comments), and read it carefully to ensure you understand each comment.
• Log your feedback : create a system of storing your feedback that is easily accessible.
• Use your feedback in future assignments : refer to your feedback in preparation for new assignments, and use it as a checklist.
• Understand the feedback

Tutors will have different ways of giving you feedback. Some will provide a written summary of your key strengths and weaknesses, and some will provide oral recorded feedback. You may also receive focused, itemised feedback on the script of your work.

Tutors will provide both positive and critical feedback. Generally, the positive feedback is easy to understand, but sometimes the critical feedback can be unclear or can use terminology that is not easy to understand. Some common critical comments are listed below with a glossary to explain what is meant, and suggestions for how to improve as a result of this feedback.

• Glossary of terms
• Log your feedback

Once you have read and understood the feedback you have received, it is important to create a system of storing it for future reference. This feedback is useful when preparing your next assignments, and you should find a system of storage that is easily accessible and works well for you.

Not everyone will like the same system. Here are a couple of examples of ways that students have stored their feedback to create an easy reference tool to use as a check list each time they start work on assignments.

Using a table

This method of logging and storing your feedback is commonly used. Here you create a table and cut and past feedback into the appropriate column. In addition, students often include a column for their grade, so that they can see which assignments are likely to have feedback that tells them not only what to improve, but also what to continue doing.

This is what it could look like as a student starts to fill it in:

Using a mind map

Another common way to log your feedback is by creating a mind map.

Use sections to group your feedback so that it is easily demarcated by comment-type. Mind maps work best with the key points from your feedback. It can be a useful review task to pull out the main issues raised by your tutor, and to summarise them using concise language.

Remember that you should choose a way to log your feedback that works best for you. It needs to be achievable and accessible to you, so that you can use it easily to review your tutors’ advice and learn from it.

• Use your feedback in future assignments

Once you have set up a system for collecting and storing your feedback, you have an important resource to help you improve on your work.

You need to revisit this feedback and review the comments frequently, in order to learn what your strengths and weaknesses are. You will start to identify themes, and this will help you to create a plan for how to improve.

For each new assignment, the following approach should help you to avoid making the same mistakes again, and allow you to consolidate the strengths you have.

• Summary and next steps
• Make sure you understand it and can see why your tutors are saying what they are saying.
• Create a storage system that suits you. Include your own reflection and ideas for what you need to do to improve.
• As you build up your feedback, start to collate it to show recurring themes and comments.
• Use your collated feedback as a guide and checklist when planning, preparing and reviewing your work.

Engaging with feedback resource

This short, interactive self-access resource shows you how to:

• use feedback as a powerful learning tool
• examine what might be preventing you from using feedback
• identify patterns in your feedback
• set goals and create a personal action plan.

If you have any questions, please contact us.

Academic Skills

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• Request a Consultation
• Workshops and Virtual Conversations
• Technical Support
• Course Design and Preparation
• Observation & Feedback

Teaching Resources

Templates for Quick Student Feedback

Resource overview.

Gather quick and useful student feedback about your course with our easy-to-use templates.

Gathering Student Feedback

Get started with survey templates created through collaboration between CIRCLE and the Center for Teaching and Learning.

We offer templates available for use in Canvas, Google Forms and Qualtrics. The templates all have the same questions and are fully customizable; use whichever platform you prefer. Please note that only Google Forms and Qualtrics offer truly anonymous surveys.

Each format has four templates available for gathering various kinds of feedback:

• Quick Course Pulse : General feedback on how the course is going overall
• Quick Feedback on a Course Activity : Feedback on a specific course activity
• Quick Activity Feedback – Group Work : Feedback on a group assignment or activity
• Quick Lecture Feedback : Feedback specific to lecture portions of a course

Using these Templates in your Course

• Consider each template as a jumping off point. You can use them as is, or you can update them to better fit your needs by changing settings or editing, adding, or deleting questions. Instructions and tips are included in the survey guides found on the pages for each survey mode.
• Under “Downloads” there is a pdf guide explaining how to use each kind of template in detail (Canvas / Google Forms / Qualtrics).
• If you’d like further help or input on collecting student feedback, schedule a consultation with CTL staff or contact Rick Moore, the Assistant Director for Assessment and Evaluation [email protected]

Created through a collaboration between CIRCLE and the Center for Teaching and Learning. To preview the templates and import them into your courses, log into Canvas, and then follow the links below. Alternatively, you can also search for the templates within Canvas Commons using the instructions further down the page.

See our pdf guide download that includes detailed instructions plus general tips on collecting student feedback using these templates.

Available Survey Templates

• Quick Course Pulse:  General feedback on how the course is going overall
• Quick Feedback on a Course Activity:  Feedback on a specific course activity
• Quick Activity Feedback – Group Work:  Feedback on a group assignment or activity

If you still can’t get to the surveys via the links, please follow the instructions below to access the surveys by searching Canvas Commons. Once you’ve imported a survey into your course, it can be found under the “Quizzes” where you can make any changes you need and publish it to your students.

Accessing Surveys via Canvas Commons Search

Correct results will have the following image:

Google Forms is a easy-to-use survey platform that can be completely anonymous. If you don’t already have one you will need to  create a Google account  to design and send Google Forms, but students do not need to use or even have a Google account to respond.

The templates below were created through collaboration between CIRCLE and the Center for Teaching and Learning.

Click the links below to access the survey templates. Once a template has been opened, click the “USE TEMPLATE” button located in the upper right corner of the screen to import the survey into your Google account.

We also offer a pdf guide that includes  more instructions and general tips  on collecting student feedback using these Google Form templates.

Qualtrics is a professional survey platform to which WashU has an institutional subscription. Details and support can be found on the  Information Technology Qualtrics page .

Although Qualtrics is not difficult to use, because it is relatively feature-rich, it may be easier for you to use our Google Form or Canvas templates if you are not already familiar with designing surveys on this platform.

To import the templates into your Qualtrics account, download and  import the .qsf file for the survey  that you would like to use. In addition to the .qsf files, you can also download a Word version of the survey in order to preview the questions before importing them into Qualtrics.

We offer a pdf guide that includes more instructions and general tips on collecting student feedback using these templates.

• Quick Course Pulse: General feedback on how the course is going overall [ .qsf  /  Word ]
• Quick Feedback on a Course Activity: Feedback on a specific course activity [ .qsf  /  Word ]
• Quick Activity Feedback – Group Work: Feedback on a group assignment or activity [ .qsf  /  Word ]
• Quick Lecture Feedback: Feedback specific to lecture portions of a course [ .qsf  /  Word ]

Further Tips

• Collect Something : Don’t get overwhelmed with possibility. Even a single piece of feedback can help you improve your course. Think about what you most want to know about your students’ experience in your course.
• No need to reinvent the wheel : Use one of our ready-made templates to get started. You can always customize the questions to meet your specific needs, but there’s no need to start from scratch.
• Wait a bit : Refrain from collecting feedback during the first two weeks of class; this will help you avoid investing effort into fixing issues that will naturally improve as students settle into the course.
• Explain : Tell students what types of feedback you plan to collect and why.
• Keep it brief : Try to use surveys that students can complete in a minute or two.
• Make it convenient : Embed surveys into Canvas modules or send via email to streamline the process for students.to streamline the process for students.
• Be strategic : Don’t overwhelm your students or yourself by collecting feedback on every activity. Focus your efforts on activities you suspect are not working well or those you’ve had to alter significantly.
• Provide clear response options : Aim for response options with clear practical meanings (e.g., Needs Improvement/Meets Expectations vs. a 1-5 scale). This approach may help you view, interpret, and respond to feedback more quickly.
• Give credit : If possible, consider tying surveys to a small amount of points (i.e., completion credit) to encourage participation. For example, this can be easily done on Canvas with an graded survey .
• Acknowledge : Thank students for their feedback and emphasize its importance for improving the course.
• Follow-Up : If necessary, make changes and assess their effect with a follow-up survey. For changes made to specific activities, the follow-up can be conducted the next time students complete the activity. For more general course-level changes, allow at least 3-4 weeks for the changes to take hold before reassessing. It’s also good idea to tell students explicitly that you’re making changes based on their feedback. If many students ask for a change that you decide not to implement, you might want to explain why you made that choice, if appropriate. This lets the students know that they were heard.
• Start small: If your data indicate to you that improvement is needed, start by identifying one concrete change you can make rather than making a major overhaul.
• Take care of “easy” fixes: Be sure to make “easy” fixes (broken links, pdfs that are hard to read, not be audible during lecture, etc.); even if only one student has mentioned them others have likely had the same problem.
• Expect some negative feedback: A small percentage of students will always indicate that something “Needs Improvement.” It’s also normal to receive some contradictory results, especially with open ended questions (e.g. discussions are too long / discussions are too short). Keep negative ratings and comments in perspective.
• Use open-ended feedback: Identify potential changes by consulting open-ended feedback (if you’ve collected it), soliciting follow-up feedback from students, seeking input from colleagues, or consulting with the CTL.
• Look for patterns: Several students writing similar responses may be evidence of wider agreement on an issue. At the same time, comments that disagree with one another can also point to areas where student experience varies; such variation may signal an area to address in the future.
• Sort answers: Finding patterns and making sense of qualitative data is not always easy, especially if you have more than just a few responses. One method is to copy and paste the qualitative answers into another program (e.g. Excel, Word, etc.) where you can sort them into categories that are helpful to you. There is no one right sorting strategy for everyone and you should choose the one that works best for you.
• Follow up: You can always collect another round of feedback to assess changes you make. If this is a course-level change (and not just a change to a specific activity), give several weeks for the change to take effect before assessing.

While designing your survey, consider the advantages and challenges associated with open-ended survey questions.

Advantages:

• Provides a low-barrier opportunity for students to share concerns and suggestions
• Can help you interpret and respond to results of the closed questions without additional follow-up

Challenges:

• Reviewing open responses can be time consuming, especially for a large course.
• Open questions require more effort from students and can reduce response rates.

Some form of open-ended feedback is crucial to pinpoint problems and identify potential improvements. If you chose not to initially ask open-ended questions, you might consider following up with students via class discussion, email, or another survey on any specific areas of concern identified by your initial survey. While leaving open-ended questions for follow-up steps can help you control the amount and type of feedback you receive, there are also drawbacks to this approach. It creates extra logistical steps for yourself and your students, and surveying people frequently can significantly lower response rates. In general, open-ended questions are easiest to implement in smaller courses and more difficult (although not impossible) to use in larger ones.

Have suggestions?

If you have suggestions of resources we might add to these pages, please contact us:

[email protected] (314) 935-6810 Mon - Fri, 8:30 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.