Reflecting on my academic journey, one pivotal experience stands out: the influence of my high school English teacher. In an era when crafting an essay meant wrestling with a clunky desktop computer, my teacher dedicated countless hours to reading our work and providing invaluable feedback. It was a labor of love that, quite frankly, was as rare as a unicorn in the modern education landscape.
Fast forward to today, and the quest for personalized feedback in education remains as challenging as ever. As Russ Roberts provocatively questions in a recent episode, “How do we scale grading and feedback?” Historically, the bottleneck has been the finite supply of skilled human evaluators. After all, while we can automate many tasks, the subtleties of empathy, discernment, and pedagogical intuition are still decidedly human domains.
In the current educational climate, the pressing question remains: what type of feedback genuinely benefits students? Daisy Christodoulou, a guest on the episode, presents a stark critique of traditional feedback methods in education. She points out that much of the written feedback teachers dispense is often so vague that it fails to guide students toward improvement. For instance, a middle school student was told to “make their scientific inquiries more systematic.” When asked how he might do that in the future, the student candidly replied, “I don’t know. If I’d known how to be more systematic, I would have done it right the first time.” The irony here is palpable: the teacher knows what a more systematic approach looks like, yet the student is left in the dark, lacking the specific exercises that would foster mastery.
Christodoulou emphasizes that students struggling academically often lack a clear understanding of how to improve. Generic phrases like “try again” or “be clearer” do little to illuminate a path forward. She compellingly likens writing to marathon training: you wouldn’t prepare for a marathon by running one every day. Instead, it requires a gradual buildup, incorporating varied exercises that may not seem directly related to running but are essential for success. Similarly, honing writing skills may involve enriching vocabulary, practicing sentence structure, or engaging in targeted inference exercises.
According to Christodoulou, a shift in teacher mindset is crucial—educators must conceptualize feedback in terms of models of progression. This means identifying specific, incremental steps that lead students from their current level toward mastery. For example, a student advised to “infer more insightfully” might not require another essay but rather focused lessons on vocabulary and word structure. This is the essence of meaningful feedback—it inspires actionable steps.
Christodoulou also tackles a question increasingly relevant in today’s classrooms: can AI assist in delivering meaningful feedback? Can it evaluate essays in a way that genuinely benefits students? As of early 2025, the answer remains somewhat elusive. Challenges surrounding accuracy and consistency, alongside the tendency of AI to “hallucinate” information, persist. While some of these issues may eventually be resolved, Christodoulou and her team are already experimenting with hybrid feedback models, where teachers provide audio feedback that AI then transcribes and organizes. This collaborative approach, allowing teachers to retain their role as insight providers while AI manages the more tedious aspects, could represent a promising avenue forward.
Simultaneously, an unsettling trend is emerging in classrooms: students increasingly seek to bypass the rigors of writing altogether in favor of AI-generated responses. Here we are, striving to scale authentic feedback just as students are tempted to shortcut the learning process. The challenge of maintaining the value of critical thinking and writing in an era dominated by instant text generation is one we will be grappling with for the foreseeable future. Inspired by Christodoulou’s insights, I am motivated to rethink my approach to teaching. Instead of merely reiterating concepts, I plan to deconstruct tasks into smaller, manageable exercises that will empower my students to master new, advanced skills.
