Over my last three years at Cornell, I have submitted several assignments, projects, and problem sets and received different feedback for each one them. I believe feedback helps students identify their strengths and weaknesses, but can only be useful if a student actually takes the time to read it. Cynthia Hill’s talk about instructor feedback opened our eyes to the value that feedback can add to a student’s education and how it can hinder students from thinking creatively. Often times, instructors try to mold their students into a version of themselves by providing feedback that caters to their own academic criteria. Grading rubrics are the medium through which instructors exert their academic power over their students. By forcing them to adopt the rubric, instructors narrow the students’ thought processes and limit them to producing what is written on the paper. On the other hand, if instructors didn’t give out a grading rubric, students would have more freedom in terms of approaching the assignment but might also be at risk of missing an important component of the assignment.

The controversy that surrounds instructor feedback raises the question if the feedback itself is ineffective or if the student is refusing to look at the feedback in the first place. A lot of students look for the letter grade before looking at the feedback. If they end up getting a good grade, they disregard the feedback assuming that it is mostly positive. However, a high score on an assignment doesn’t always entail positive feedback because the grader can point out the flaws in the students work while addressing the strengths of the assignment. Additionally, sometimes the feedback is insufficient for the student to deduce what they did well or bad in the assignment. If the the grader only focuses on the strengths of the assignment, the student might not be able to figure out his or her weaknesses. It is imperative that instructor feedback provide a balanced review of a student’s work that will enrich their understanding of the concepts and ideas covered in the class.