# How to give feedback in tutoring that students act on > How to give feedback in tutoring that students act on: one next step, close to the work, a quick redo, and voice or written notes that take seconds to give. URL: https://learnworkly.com/blog/feedback-students-act-on · Published 2026-11-12 · Tags: Feedback, Online tutoring Tutors give a lot of feedback. Comments on homework, corrections during the lesson, notes on a practice paper. Yet many students make the same mistake the following week, as if the feedback never happened. Usually it did happen. It just never turned into action. Feedback only helps when the student does something with it. This guide covers how to give feedback in tutoring that students act on: what to focus on, when to give it, how to keep it short, and how to make sure a second attempt follows. ## Why feedback so often goes nowhere The Education Endowment Foundation’s [Teaching and Learning Toolkit entry on feedback](https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/education-evidence/teaching-learning-toolkit/feedback) rates feedback as one of the most effective things a teacher can do, with a high average impact. It also warns that the effect varies widely: some feedback helps a lot, and some has no effect or even makes things worse. The difference usually comes down to a few common problems: - **Too much at once.** Ten corrections on one page tell a student everything is wrong and nothing is a priority. - **Too vague.** “Be more careful” or “Develop your answer” does not tell a student what to do differently. - **Too late.** A comment on work from two weeks ago arrives after the student has moved on. - **No second chance.** If the student never uses the feedback, it is just a note on an old piece of work. Each of these has a simple fix. ## Focus on one next step The most useful feedback answers one question: *what should this student do next?* Not everything that could be better, just the change that will make the biggest difference now. Compare these: - “Lots of errors in your working. Check your negatives and your layout, and remember to show units.” - “In line 2, you added 5 instead of subtracting it. Redo line 2 onwards and check by putting your answer back into the equation.” The second one points to a place, names the mistake and gives a specific action. A student can do it in two minutes. If there are other problems, note them for yourself and come back to them in a later lesson. ## Give feedback while it still matters Feedback works best close to the work, while the student still remembers what they were thinking. For online tutors, that often means giving it during the lesson rather than afterwards: - **Look at every answer as it comes in**, not just at the end of the task. - **Respond to the most common mistake first.** If three students in a group make the same error, a two-minute explanation to everyone beats three separate comments. - **Mark homework before the next lesson**, not during it, so you can plan around what you found. When students are writing or drawing their working, seeing it live helps even more. You can spot where a method goes wrong at the moment it happens. Our guide to [checking handwritten maths work online](/blog/handwritten-maths-work-online) covers this for maths tutors in more detail. ## Make it quick to give and quick to read Feedback that takes ten minutes to write will not happen every week. A few ways to keep it fast: - **Mark on the work itself.** Circling the line where an error starts is faster and clearer than describing it. - **Use voice notes.** Thirty seconds of speaking often says more than a paragraph of writing, and younger students find it easier to follow. For language students, you can model pronunciation at the same time. - **Keep a few ready-made comments** for things you say often, such as “Almost there, take another look” or “Can you explain how you got this?” - **Ask a question instead of giving the answer.** “What happens to the inequality sign here?” makes the student do the thinking. In LearnWorkly, you can type a comment or record a voice note on any answer, and draw on top of a student’s Drawing answer, and the student sees it straight away and can reply. The [feedback features](/features/feedback) page shows how it works for each question type. *[Image: Feedback on a student’s handwritten answer to “Solve 3x + 5 = 20. Show your working.”, with the wrong line circled in red, quick comments such as “Almost there, take another look” and a box to type or record feedback]* ## Always build in a second attempt This is the step most often skipped, and the one that matters most. Feedback becomes learning when the student uses it to try again: - **Hand the work back** and ask the student to correct just the part your feedback points to. - **Set a similar question** straight after the correction, so the student shows they can do it without help. - **Start the next lesson** with a question on the same point, to check it stuck. In LearnWorkly, you can hand an answer back to a student so they can change it and submit again. Even without software, the rule is the same: no feedback without a next attempt. ## Teach students to use feedback Many students, especially younger ones, have never been shown what to do with feedback. They read the score, glance at the comments and move on. A little coaching changes that: - **Ask students to explain your feedback back to you** in their own words. If they cannot, it was not clear enough. - **Keep a short list of each student’s targets**, such as “Check signs when moving terms” or “Use linking words”, and refer back to it. - **Point out when a target has been met.** “Three weeks ago this was your target, and today you did it without thinking” is powerful motivation. ## Feedback to parents is different Parents need a different kind of feedback: not line-by-line corrections, but a clear picture of progress and what comes next. Keep the two separate. Detailed feedback goes to the student, close to the work. A short summary of strengths, targets and next steps goes to the parent every few weeks. ## A simple feedback routine to start with For your next lesson, try three rules: one next step per piece of work, given within the same lesson or before the next, and always followed by a second attempt. Most tutors find that students start fixing their own mistakes faster within a few weeks. If you want to try voice notes, marking on the work and hand-back with your own students, [LearnWorkly is free for up to 10 students](/pricing).