Immediate for Simple Tasks
For simple or procedural tasks, correct errors immediately. Shute found quick feedback prevents mistakes from embedding. Do not wait until next lesson to fix what can be fixed now.
The strategy, as published
Exactly as it appears on the card
Part of Timing & Frequency 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
Some errors should not be left to sit. On simple and procedural tasks, Shute found that quick feedback stops mistakes embedding; every repetition of a wrong method is practice at being wrong.
Waiting until next lesson to fix what could be fixed now hands the error a week of rehearsal.
What it might look like
One version of it, in a classroom
During column subtraction practice, a teacher checks answers as pupils work rather than collecting books in. A pupil subtracting the smaller digit from the larger regardless of position is caught on question three, not question thirty.
Try it
A way to begin
Pick one procedural practice task this week and mark it live, in the room, instead of taking it away. Books stay open; errors get fixed at the desk.
What to notice
Reading what happens
- Whether the same procedural errors reappear later in the week, which is the test of whether the correction landed.
- What pupils do immediately after a correction: redo the question, or move straight on.
Things to think about
Before and while you use it
- Immediate correction is for the simple and procedural. On complex work the guide's advice runs the other way: let the struggle do its work first.
- Deciding which tasks count as simple is a judgement about your class and your subject. The teacher in the room knows, not a website.
Technology second
Where technology fits
An approved auto-marked quiz or response tool in your setting can give every pupil that immediate correction at once, which no teacher circulating a room can match for procedural practice. The trap named in this strand still applies: a score, a tick or a badge that stops there is information, not feedback. Build in the moment where pupils redo the questions they got wrong, or the speed achieves nothing.
The wider thinking
Where the evidence sits
Shute's review of formative feedback is the source here: timing is not a matter of taste but of task, with quick correction suited to simple work. The card’s attribution stands as published: Shute.
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.