Instructor feedback has been consistently shown to have one of the greatest impacts on student learning (Hattie & Timperley, 2007). Indeed, the corrective and motivating role of feedback is one reason that the appeal of instructor-led courses, as opposed to fully self-directed, individual learning, continues to be in demand. Feedback is "information provided by an agent (teacher, co-worker, etc.) regarding aspects of one's performance or understanding" (Hattie & Timperley, 2007), and it allows individuals to "reduce discrepancies between current understandings and performance and a goal" (Sadler 1989). When done well, feedback can increase motivation, develop self-regulated learners, enhance academic performance, and promote a sense of belonging and inclusivity in courses.

Feedback is not only about how much or how well you give it, but also about what it is aimed at. Hattie and Timperley (2007) reviewed the feedback literature and proposed that feedback operates at four levels. Each level answers a different question for the student and has a different effect on learning.

• Process and self-regulation feedback are generally more effective for deeper learning and transfer. Process feedback helps students build strategies they can reuse. Self-regulation feedback builds the habit of self-assessment, which is the long-term goal of feedback (Hattie & Timperley, 2007; Butler & Winne, 1995).
• Task-level feedback is the most common type and is useful for correcting errors and clarifying expectations. It tends to be specific to one assignment, so it transfers less to future work (Hattie & Timperley, 2007).
• Self-level feedback, such as generic praise or criticism, is the least effective. It carries little information about the task or process, so students have nothing concrete to act on (Hattie & Timperley, 2007).

• Specific: Feedback loses its value when it's vague and students lack sufficient information to address the errors. Provide enough specific information that students are able to identify the issue and address it.

• Timely: It's important to give feedback close enough to students' learning experiences so that the original task is still memorable enough that they can meaningfully apply and integrate the feedback (Angelo, 1993). In addition, taking too long to give feedback can signal a lack of interest in students' work, which can be demotivating for them.

• Actionable: Keep in mind that feedback should be applied to future learning tasks, so you'll want to make it clear how students could act on your feedback going forward. Too often, instructors only give feedback at the end of the learning experience, and students ignore it because they do not see how it can be used in the future. To prompt students to act on it, it can help to use sentence stems like "in the future, consider how you could..."

• Prioritized: While it can be tempting to correct every error in a students' work, it is often more effective for their learning to prioritize feedback to the major issues (Nicol et al., 2006). Too much feedback can backfire and cognitively overwhelm students and undermine the self-efficacy needed to move forward in their learning journey, particularly if a student struggles with imposter syndrome or stereotype threat.