3 Questions, Not Corrections

The strategy, as published

Exactly as it appears on the card

Part of Feedback That Moves Learning Forward in 02 Formative Assessment, where it sits alongside its neighbouring strategies, the infographic and the thinking for the whole area.

Why you might use it

The problem it may help with

A correction does the cognitive work for the pupil and hopes some of it rubs off. A question hands the work back. Returning a piece with three questions rather than a page of corrections keeps the effort where the card says it belongs: with the learner.

Three is a discipline as much as a number. Choosing which three to ask forces you to decide which gaps deserve the pupil's limited attention.

What it might look like

One version of it, in a classroom

On a science investigation write-up, instead of correcting the method section, the teacher writes: which variable did you actually change? How would a reader repeat step 3? What would make your conclusion safer? The pupil answers all three before starting the next investigation.

Try it

A way to begin

Trial it on one set of books: three questions, no corrections, and the requirement that answers come before new work. The requirement is the part that cannot be skipped.

What to notice

Reading what happens

• The quality of the answers. Thin ones usually mean the question told the pupil what to write.
• How long the questions take to write compared with your usual marking of the same work.

Things to think about

Before and while you use it

• The 'must respond before moving on' clause carries the whole strategy. Questions without protected time to answer them collapse back into corrections that happen to have question marks.

Related strategies

Where this connects

• ❓ Questions, Not Corrections Return work with questions, not corrections. "What evidence supports this claim?" demands more thinking than rewriting it for them. The cognitive work belongs with the learner. 03 Feedback · Closing the Gap
• 🧠 Feedback Must Cause Thinking Feedback must be more work for the recipient than the donor. Pose questions rather than writing corrections. If feedback requires no response from the learner, it is not feedback; it is merely information. 02 Formative Assessment · Feedback That Moves Learning Forward
• ⏰ Build In Time to Act Feedback with no time to act on it has no value. Begin the next lesson with students reading and responding to feedback before anything new. Time to act is where the learning happens. 02 Formative Assessment · Feedback That Moves Learning Forward
• 🧔 Embrace the Struggle Bjork coined desirable difficulties for conditions that slow apparent learning but improve long-term retention. Effortful retrieval is the clearest example. Resist the urge to make it easier. 01 Retrieval Practice · Desirable Difficulties

The wider thinking

Where the evidence sits

The reasoning is Wiliam's: feedback should cause thinking, and correcting on the pupil's behalf removes the struggle the learning depends on. The card’s attribution stands as published: Wiliam.

The fuller picture, sources included, is in further reading and evidence for Formative Assessment.