ON DEMAND: Feedback to the Future: Providing Writing Feedback to Foster Students’ Transfer of Knowledge (15 mins)

Abstract

Instructors are sometimes frustrated when the feedback they provide for student writing seems not to be acted on in subsequent assignments. This problem, we propose, is more complex than urging students to pay attention to prior feedback in future assignments. It’s a matter also of providing feedback that supports transferable learning and that cues students to apply that learning going forward. In this presentation we share a variety of moves instructors can make in their written feedback to foster students’ forward-reaching transfer of learning. Drawing on theories of learning transfer (Perkins & Salomon, 1988; Devet, 2015; Hill, 2016), which propose that transfer must often be cued, primed, and guided, we developed a framework to help identify a repertoire of moves that can support transfer. We provide examples drawn from written feedback on student writing. We will briefly (re)introduce participants to transfer theory; connect that theory to the framework we used to identify or shape feedback on student writing; and present example examples of each type of move.