Welcome to the Tuesday Teaching Tip, an easy-to-implement tool that you can use immediately in your classroom teaching. 

TUESDAY TEACHING TIP: Making Midterm Feedback Actionable for Students

This week, we challenge you to make your midterm feedback more actionable for students.  Delivering coursework or midterm feedback and its reception (and implementation) by students can be hit or miss. Perhaps you’ve been wondering if your feedback has been thoroughly read, or maybe you’ve gotten the sense that it’s being overlooked altogether. Maybe you’ve had students who want to apply your feedback but don’t know where to start. If you’ve run into challenges with students achieving development from the feedback you provide, this Tuesday Teaching Tip may prompt some new ideas for giving feedback that meets students where they’re at.

Here’s one way to do it 

• Specificity: Where possible, give specific ways students can improve rather than leaving a general or vague comment. 
• E.g., instead of: ‘not convincing’ or ‘weak argument’, try: ‘your argument would be stronger if this paragraph had a clear topic sentence and engaged more carefully with your evidence/data’.
• Applicability: Connect feedback to wider learning goals or skills development in the course. Ask students to reflect on key takeaways from the feedback, and relate these takeaways to their own intellectual growth over the course of the quarter, to the course learning goals, or disciplinary skills they are developing.   
• Discussion and Questions: After returning feedback, set aside some time in class to address some of the most common mistakes (perhaps also highlighting some successes) and invite questions from students. Encourage them to attend office hours if they would like to discuss feedback on an individual basis.

Sharing rich feedback can be labor and time intensive, especially during a busy period in the term. But wherever possible, especially in cases where you’re observing a lack of interaction, add detail and provide encouragement alongside constructive criticism. Consider these tips and tricks for your own use in grading, or share them with your teaching/grading assistants. As we know, formative feedback is an incredibly valuable tool for students. By helping them connect the dots between receiving critical feedback, understanding and reflecting on this feedback, and applying it in future work, we facilitate their successful achievement of learning transfer and mastery.

DID YOU DO IT?

Let us know how it went. We would love to hear your feedback about how you implemented today’s Tuesday Teaching Tip in your classroom. Click here to fill out our 3-question survey. The survey is anonymous, but if you choose to enter your name, you’ll be entered in a drawing at the end of the quarter to win a new book from Faculty Development!

 

UPCOMING EVENTS

• Thinking About Retirement: When and How? on Wednesday, May 6 RSVP

• Preparing for FAR on Wednesday, May 13 RSVP

• Faculty Sabbatical Information Session on Tuesday, May 19 RSVP
  
  
• CAFE: Grading: Strategies, Successes, and Lessons Learned  on Wednesday, May 20 RSVP

 

The Teaching and Learning Center is asking for your feedback on our Art Contest! If you have not done so already, please fill out our Community Reflections Feedback Form by Monday, May 18th.

 

WANT TO READ A LITTLE MORE?

• Julia Collela, “Why Students Ignore Feedback and Tips to Fix It!” Faculty Focus 4/13/2026.
• Nazarana Mather and Liesl Scheepers, “Feedback on feedback: An exploratory case study of online facilitators’ perceptions regarding their feedback practices in higher education,” Turkish Online Journal of Distance Education, 26(1): 2025, 220-232. 
• DRT page on Motivating Students
• Previous Tuesday Teaching Tips: 
• Cara Chiaraluce, “Cultivating Growth Mindset in the Classroom”
• Emily Park, “Transforming Midterm Feedback into Equitable and Effective Learning”

This week’s Tuesday Teaching Tip was prepared by Caitlin Flynn and Gaby Tiu on behalf of Faculty Development and the Center for Teaching Excellence.

Missed a teaching tip? Read them all here. 

And check out our full calendar of CAFEs and other Faculty Development events.