Faster, fairer, and more focused: using AI for feedback generation
We know that timely, specific feedback is one of the most powerful tools for student growth. However, with full teaching loads, larger classes and complex assignments, giving high-quality feedback to every student can be overwhelming.
AI can help reduce this feeling by helping draft initial feedback, rewording phrasing, and targeting specific criteria. Being as specific as possible in your instructions to the AI will help make the feedback it provides as useful as possible. Providing the tool with the outline, or expectations of the assignment, and the student’s grade level will help it to know generally what you are looking for, and then you can ask for more specifics for each student, depending on their needs.
Why use AI for feedback?
✅ It can save time without sacrificing depth
✅ It can precisely target specific learning goals and assessment criteria
✅ It can support students with clearer, more consistent language within comments
✅ It can make space for student reflection, conferencing, and dialogue
The goal is not to copy-paste the AI feedback responses – it should be to use the AI responses as a starting point for feedback so you can refine and personalize your comments more quickly.
What can AI help you do?
- Draft initial feedback from a sample
Use when: You’ve just read a student’s paragraph and need a starting point for feedback
Prompt: “Write formative feedback for this paragraph, focusing on clarity and organization. Make it constructive and in student-friendly language” (paste paragraph here)
Then you:
- Adjust the tone of the comments for your student
- Add personal notes or specific next steps
- Link to class discussions or previous work
- Targeting specific criteria or skills
Use when: You are marking an assignment with a rubric and want feedback aligned to the assessment standards.
Prompt: “Give feedback based on this rubric criterion: ‘using evidence to support an argument’ (paste paragraph here)
Then you:
- Match the feedback directly to the MYP/IB or provincial curriculum language
- Maintain consistency across student work
- Rephrase for tone or clarity
Use when: you have written feedback, but it sounds too harsh, too vague, or too wordy.
Prompt: “Rephrase this feedback to make it more encouraging while keeping it honest: ‘your ideas are unclear, and the structure is confusing’”
AI might suggest: “You’ve started to develop your ideas, but the organization could be clearer to help your message come through.”
- Generate feedback banks or starters
Use when: you want reusable sentence stems or a checklist for peer/self-assessments
Prompt: “Generate a list of sentence starters for formative writing feedback.”
Examples:
- “You’ve shown a strong understanding of…”
- “Consider revising this section to clarify your point about…”
- “Next time, try adding more specific evidence to support…”
Best practice for using AI-generated feedback
Personalize the last 10%
Use the AI feedback as a base, but your final comments should reflect the learner’s journey
Be specific, not generic
The generic AI-generated feedback is faster but not helpful. Adding concrete examples, connecting to classroom language, and referring to previous goals goes a long way in being more specific
Use the feedback as a teaching moment
Pair the AI-generated comments with student reflection tasks. Prompting students to read their feedback, and then reflect on one area they are proud of and one area they want to work on.
Things to watch out for
As always, we don’t want to over-rely on the AI to think for us -you know the context behind the work the AI does not.
Avoid copy-pasting feedback without review – AI might misread the tone or miss the nuance in a student’s response.
Remember that feedback is relational – what matters most is how it comes across to the students.
Other prompts to try
- Give formative feedback on this paragraph, focusing on the structure and clarity
- Suggest one strength and one improvement for this student’s oral presentation notes
- Generate end-of-term comments for a student who has shown growth in their organization but needs support in collaboration
Final thoughts
AI will never replace your insight, but it can help you give faster, fairer, and more focused feedback. By offloading the repetitive parts, you gain more time and energy to connect with students and build strong relationships with your learners.
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