Dialogic Feedback
Build reply loops into feedback. Let students question and clarify comments over time rather than receive a final judgment. Carless showed uptake rises when feedback is a conversation.
Find this under Help pupils act on feedback
The strategy, as published
Exactly as it appears on the card
Part of Source & Direction in 03 Feedback, 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 written comment is usually a full stop. Carless's research argues for making it a turn in a conversation instead: pupils question, clarify and respond to comments over time rather than receiving a final judgement.
Uptake rises when feedback works this way, partly because a pupil who can ask what a comment means no longer has to guess, and a pupil who has replied to a comment has already begun to act on it.
What it might look like
One version of it, in a classroom
A teacher returns draft coursework with two margin comments each, one ending in a question. Pupils reply in writing before redrafting, and the teacher answers the replies rather than writing fresh comments, so each piece carries a short thread of exchange rather than a verdict.
Try it
A way to begin
End one comment per pupil with a question that needs an answer, and collect the answers. The replies show you which comments were understood.
What to notice
Reading what happens
- Which comments generate genuine replies and which get token ones; the difference maps closely onto which comments were worth writing.
- Whether pupils start initiating. Asking about a comment is feedback literacy showing itself.
Things to think about
Before and while you use it
- Dialogue takes longer than delivery, so it cannot be every piece. Choosing where a feedback conversation pays its way, usually a draft heading for redraft rather than a finished piece, is the design decision.
The wider thinking
Where the evidence sits
Carless's work on feedback uptake, alongside Boud's on learner capacity, points the same way: pupils act on feedback they have had a hand in making sense of. The card’s attribution stands as published: Carless.
The fuller picture, sources included, is in further reading and evidence for Feedback.
Keep exploring
Where next?
Back to this strategy in 03 Feedback, across to what you're trying to improve, or into all 144 at once.
Want to take this further?
Support is available
Pedagogy First gives you a starting point. If you want support exploring how approaches like this can work across your school, trust or professional learning programme, that work is available.