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Jamie Kobs knows the value of giving students timely and meaningful feedback, but she often struggled with the volume of incoming assignments. Then she discovered a solution: her students. Feedback didn鈥檛 always need to come directly from her, the veteran high school English teacher realized. In fact, if she taught kids the skills to deliver constructive, focused feedback, it could be equally meaningful coming from fellow classmates.

鈥淏esides relieving me of some of the pressure, creating a classroom culture where students give each other feedback has helped me increase engagement and build community,鈥� Kobs says. 鈥淗aving more frequent interactions among students builds rapport and trust and disrupts the idea that I鈥檓 the only expert in the room."

A high-functioning feedback culture also frees up teachers to give more low-stakes assignments, creates more opportunities for students to practice, and democratizes the creative process鈥攔eplacing the top-down dynamics of more typical classrooms and making kids an equal and accountable part of learning outcomes for everyone. Kids who frequently draw, create podcasts, or write fiction with the expectation that their peers will be consuming it, and who are themselves expected to provide useful feedback, are more likely to be attuned to the elements that make art or stories truly outstanding and 鈥渇eel more seen, heard, valued, and, consequently, engaged in their work,鈥� according to Kobs.

But the middle and high school years can be a difficult time for students when it comes to peer evaluation鈥攕ome initial reluctance is normal. shows that adolescents are hypersensitive to criticism, and when they feel judged, they can become self-conscious, stressed, or withdrawn. Other students may feel tentative or shy about giving feedback to peers they admire, and for English language learners, the process might feel especially daunting.

Developing a culture of feedback must therefore happen in tandem with creating a safe and supportive classroom. By scaffolding the feedback process in a classroom where kids feel valued and empowered鈥攖he effort requires 鈥渃onsistent modeling, repetition, and a commitment to sharing the feedback with students,鈥� says Kobs鈥攅ven teens can become more comfortable with the act of giving and receiving peer feedback.

Here are six considerations for creating a culture of feedback in the classroom.

Encourage reflection, not correction: Consider limiting feedback cycles to work products that are not highly structured, or that require granular feedback related to syntax, grammar, and spelling. When students in Mark Gardner鈥檚 high school English class provide feedback, he encourages them to focus on collectively reflecting, not correcting, each other鈥檚 work. Very few incoming high school students have mastered the conventions of writing well enough to be reliable copy editors, he says. Rather than correcting syntax errors, Gardner wants his students to focus on providing feedback that outlines clear next steps that peers can take toward improvement.

鈥淢y students focus on idea development, clarity, and arrangement to make sense of the writer鈥檚 text,鈥� he explains.聽He asks students to write full sentences in their observations like, 鈥淚 am confused about who 鈥榯hey鈥� are in this sentence鈥� or 鈥淚 like how you repeated keywords from your hook here in your conclusion.鈥�

Assign feedback partners: To prevent students from worrying about evaluating friends, high school history and government teacher Benjamin Barbour recommends assigning partners instead of letting kids choose who to critique in the class. Once students are working in pairs, consider allowing them to share feedback with each other rather than with the whole class, making it a generally less stressful experience for kids.

Offer choices: Including an element of choice in the feedback process can build student agency and motivation, . A peer feedback choice board, for example, allows students to select prompts that provide direction and context for delivering feedback that鈥檚 鈥渟pecific, meaningful, and kind,鈥� Tucker notes.

For English language learners, teachers can create choice boards 鈥渨ith sentence frames to provide students with additional support as they give each other focused feedback,鈥� Tucker writes. 鈥淔or example, under the box labeled 鈥楪reatest Strength,鈥� teachers could rework that as a series of fill-in-the-blank statements. The strongest part of this draft was ______. I thought ______ was done well. I really liked ______.鈥�

Deliver feedback that is specific: Emphasize the idea that criticism must be both constructive and specific in nature in order to be helpful. English language arts specialist Katherine James says that students often leave general or vague feedback like 鈥淚 really enjoyed your story.鈥�

Instead, encourage kids to be focused and specific with their feedback. 鈥淕ive examples of what specific feedback sounds like鈥攆or example: I really liked your simile 鈥榯he rain hit the pavement like arrows鈥� because it helped me visualize the setting,鈥� rather than the more general 鈥業 liked your description,鈥欌�� James says.

Specificity counts in oral feedback too, and scaffolding student responses is equally important. After Socratic seminars or academic discussions in her classroom, Kobs directs students to 鈥済ive a specific example of something someone else said during this discussion that resonated with you,鈥� and 鈥渆xplain why it stuck with you.鈥�

Model feedback, and suggest sentence starters: During the brainstorming stage of a personal narrative assignment in her high school English classroom, Kobs鈥檚 students pitch ideas via Flipgrid videos. Students then watch and respond to the pitches of two classmates with the help of sentence starters.

To ensure that the feedback cycle is targeted and productive, Kobs and her colleagues 鈥渕odel both the pitch and the response steps with videos of our own鈥� and provide sentence starters to help kids focus on the most important aspects of the piece and clarify how to deliver their feedback. Sentence starters might prompt students to say, 鈥淚 didn鈥檛 get the part about...,鈥� pose questions or suggestions out of curiosity like 鈥淲hat happened next?鈥� or 鈥淢aybe you can try...,鈥� or make connections: 鈥淪omething similar happened to me when...鈥�

Prompt deeper engagement: Consider trying an 鈥淚 like, I wish, I wonder鈥� framework as another way to help focus students on content rather than grammar and spelling errors. It encourages them to interact creatively with their peers鈥� work, says James, and encourages critical thinking as students try to provide meaningful feedback.

鈥淲hen reading each other鈥檚 work and giving feedback, they must discuss one thing they liked about the other person鈥檚 work, one thing they wished that person had done differently, and one thing they wondered about (for example, how a main character felt about or reacted to an event),鈥� she explains.