The OQER Method: A Simple Way to Streamline Student Feedback

A more efficient approach to a time-consuming teaching task

Sep 04, 2025

An open laptop on a rustic wood desk — Photo: Realmac Software on Unsplash; edits made using ChatGPT

Raise your hand if you spend too much time giving students feedback 🙋🏿‍♂️.

If I could see the hands of the ~200 readers who’ll see this post, I’d picture a lecture hall mostly filled with palms in the air. The hand raisers would nearly throw their arms out of socket, with some experiencing PTSD from the mere thought of being locked in their home office at 2 am, a bright white Word document illuminating the room, typing in the margins of yet another 12-page paper in December.

The slim minority—those who didn’t raise their hand—would probably think to themselves, “What feedback?”

This past summer, I spent more time giving feedback than I ever had before; I went from teaching 15 students to teaching 45 across two very different courses. This enrollment number pales in comparison to the hundreds of students some university faculty teach, or the 6 to 7 distinct groups of students an adjunct faculty member might teach across several institutions. But the tripling of my typical student count was palpable, and it made me reevaluate my approach to grading and delivering feedback.

I revisited Grant Wiggins’ well-cited article, 7 Keys to Effective Feedback, to see how I could streamline my feedback without sacrificing quality or relying on generative AI. My biggest takeaway: there’s a difference between observation, evaluation, and advice. He posits that purely observational feedback is “less debatable” and that offering neutral, goal-oriented feedback helps the learner see whether their performance met the instructor’s objectives and their own.

I toggled between the article, the student’s submitted paper in Canvas, and the Word doc I was using to jot down my notes. Without jumping to an assessment of the student’s work, I began writing a list of all the relevant things I observed: whether the analytical frameworks I asked them to use were present, whether sources were accurately cited, and whether other rubric items were evident. This list didn’t contain a point total or letter grade, nor did it include words like “good”, “great”, “interesting”, or “well.” Wiggins points out that these words are judgmental and evaluative. Though there’s a place for judgment in feedback, beginning one’s feedback with evaluative declarations is the easiest way to dilute the tangible improvements we want the receiver to make.

My student feedback typically includes a set of questions labeled “Questions to Consider.” But the Wiggins piece illuminated the importance of asking these questions earlier in my feedback; I now include a set of questions after listing my observations. The questions are intended to understand the student’s goals and confirm the accuracy of my observations.

After rounding out my feedback by jotting down my evaluation of the work and my recommendations for improvement, I shaped the bullet points into cohesive, conversational paragraphs. I started to hit backspace on the “observations”, “questions”, “evaluation”, and “recommendations” subheaders in my notes. But then I thought, “Why not just keep them?” I rationalized that demarcating these ‘segments’ of feedback can help the student compartmentalize my comments and more consciously receive them in the linear manner I intended.

I copied and pasted this process for the next paper, and the next, and the one after that. Hours had passed, but those hours felt more productive than the countless hours I’d spent grading and giving feedback in previous years. I’m not sure that I spent less time grading this crop of papers, and I can’t say that my feedback was better this time around; I first initiated this strategy on a final assignment for an online asynchronous course, so I couldn’t see whether students showed more improvement as a result of the new approach. But this strategy certainly made it easier and more enjoyable to deliver feedback, and I felt that the guidance students got from me was more consistent.

I used this same method in my second course, an accelerated, in-person, college-level course for high school students. For this course, we had final presentations, and I was able to use this method for both the final projects they submitted and the immediate feedback I gave them on their presentations. I even shared the framework with my students, who gave feedback to their peers. Like the feedback I gave in the online course, I felt that my responses to students were more transparent, specific, consistent, and confident.

The OQER Method

The OQER Method (Pronounced “oh-kerr” (sort of like the Cardi B sound effect)) for delivering feedback has several advantages. First, it eliminated the challenge of figuring out what to say to students. It took out the guesswork—each student’s feedback had the same components, structure, and length, and all that was different was the content, which was based on their performance.

Secondly, this method disrupts typical approaches to feedback and grading. I once asked a student which they thought professors typically did first: grade the assignment or draft feedback on the assignment. Without hesitation, they said the former. Some faculty read an assignment, think to themselves, “this is A-quality work” (‘I know an A when I see it’), and leave feedback that tells the student what they did and didn’t do well. The feedback should always inform your evaluation of students, not the other way around.

It’s hard to evaluate student work when you haven’t looked for the rubric items. It’s also hard to look for rubric items when there are no rubric items to look for. Assignment instructions usually aren’t comprehensive enough; if we want students to practice deep critical thinking and problem solving, we must spell out exactly what that looks like in our discipline, which is why we need a rubric for most, if not all, assignments. The OQER method doesn’t work without rubrics.

Thirdly, it made my feedback more transparent. I didn’t feel like I was hiding anything from students. Hypothetically, one student could receive an A and another a C, and those two students could reach each other’s feedback to know exactly what distinguished an A from a C without having to read their actual assignments.

Fourthly, this method prevented me from turning into a copy editor. Yes, grammar, spelling, organization, storytelling, and overall composition skills are vital, and we can teach and assess students based on those skills. But in my discipline (Education Technology), writing is just a small part of what I’d like my students to do. If we’re not careful, we can look up and find that half the feedback we give to students is on their writing. I minimize this by reserving comments on writing for the Observations and Recommendations sections. I use the Observations section to note the impact their writing had on my ability to assess the assignment: “Heavy use of adjectives throughout, which distracts from the connection between your argumentative points and thesis.” And I use the Recommendation section to suggest corrective tools and conventions, whether that be Grammarly to correct typos or replacing passive voice with active voice for added specificity. I still comment on writing, but it doesn’t consume the feedback.

OQER Method Example

Below is an example of written feedback I delivered to a student in a micro-course I taught earlier this year, Learner-Centered Instruction, using the OQER method.

Observations

Thank you for showcasing your learner-centered instruction by uploading your syllabus with comments. You demonstrated several ways that you make your course student-centered. I’ve organized them into a few primary domains:

Making yourself easily accessible: adding your cell number, promising timely responses, etc.
Delivering microlectures to make your teaching more personable (which you report students appreciating)
Valuing their feedback by explaining how CATS helps improve your teaching
Linking out to WilmU’s policies for students to read more if needed
Culturally relevant and responsive assignments
Detailed feedback and assignment descriptions

Of these methods, I identified two that align with the learner-centered principles discussed in the course: your statement about feedback through CATS aligns with “coach learners to expert performance,” and the cultural relevance of your assignments aligns with “situate learning in real-life activities.” These connections were not explicitly made in your submission; there may be connections to the 7 learner-centered principles that I missed.

Questions

To better understand your approach and goals for this assignment, here are a few questions I’d like to ask you:

Do you see other connections between your syllabus and the 7 learner-centered principles that I may not have noted?
How do you envision students engaging with or benefiting from the policies you’ve included—particularly those written in more formal or institution-centered language?

Evaluation

You met all of the requirements for this assignment by clearly incorporating learner-centered practices into your syllabus and explaining their purpose. While there are areas you can refine further—particularly in personalizing your policies and creating more opportunities for student input—you demonstrated evidence of applying learner-centered strategies in a course-relevant manner. You earned full credit for this submission.

Recommendations

There are two aspects of your syllabus that I encourage you to develop to more closely align with learner-centered instructional principles: 1) Drafting more personalized syllabus policies, and 2) Providing opportunities for students to “construct their own plans” (one of the 7 principles).

Policies

I noticed that most of your policies are written with a faculty or institution-centered lens instead of a student-centered lens: “Faculty must be contacted prior to...”, “The instructor reserves the right to change...”, etc. Speaking in first and second person—“I”, “you”, and “we”—to describe you and your students lets them know you’ve considered how these policies will affect them. It also shows that you’re owning these policies and you’ve adapted them to meet their needs. I see that you have made some customizations, but those adjustments aren’t obvious because you kept the formal phrasing used on the university webpages.

Providing Opportunities for Students to Construct Their Plans

You might consider setting guiding principles or course expectations with your students. Doing so treats them as experts and contributors to their learning environment. Many of these policies feel top-down with little space for student input, besides the CATS survey once the course has concluded.

Conclusion

As noted in the observations section, you’ve demonstrated several ways that your syllabus is learner-centered, and it sounds like you do so often in your interactions with students. I encourage you to examine the items described to maximize the learner-centered nature of your teaching. I’m happy to talk through these pieces further if you have questions, concerns, or ideas to share.

What are your thoughts on this feedback framework and the commentary about typical vs unconventional approaches to grading and feedback? Let me know in the comments below!

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