Rotman Management — Spring 2017

rotmanmagazine.ca / 63

WHEN WE WANT TO LEARN a new skill in life, we try out a new be-
haviour. Some behaviours fulfill their intended purpose, while
others do not. Feedback — signals from the environment that tell
us whether or not the behaviour we produced had the intended
effect — is essential to changing, adapting or modifying human
behaviour. This is what learning is all about.
Whether or not a skill can be reproduced by an algorithm,
learning any skill requires feedback and is essential to the mea-
surement of learning. In the skills environment of the Fourth
Industrial Revolution — wherein information is free and com-
plex, interpersonal skills whose development requires textured,
precise, timely personalized feedback have become the highest
value contributions to human capital. The result: Feedback has
become the critical missing link in higher education.

Learning Science and Practice: A Picture Emerges

The science of learning and teaching offers abundant evidence

of the critical link between feedback and learning. In recent

years, it has come to focus on identifying the right kinds of feed-

back for different people and learning environments: Whether

you are learning a foreign language or a computer language;

learning to supress impulses; or learning to communicate co-

herently, empathically and responsively — each requires spe-

cific types and sequences of feedback.

Timeliness, precision, intelligibility, actionability, rep-

etition — all represent features of learning-enhancing and en-

abling feedback across different domains of knowledge, skill

and expertise. The discipline of machine learning has made

rapid advances in the last 10 years precisely because of its use

FEEDBACK:

The Broken Loop

in Higher Education –

and How to Fix It

Learning science and teaching practice agree on the power

of feedback to enable and enhance learning. So why is

feedback so spotty and ill-timed in higher education?

by Mihnea Moldoveanu and Maja Djikic