Esterhazy, Rachelle: Re-conceptualizing Feedback Through a Sociocultural Lens

Abstract

This chapter outlines a re-conceptualization of feedback from a sociocultural perspective. Feedback is conceptualized as a social practice that is enacted together by teachers and students, and that is deeply embedded in the sociocultural context of the given course unit. Whether feedback has an impact depends from this perspective on whether students, teachers and their sociocultural environment interact in productive ways. A three-layer model of feedback practices is presented to describe the relations between the knowledge domain, the course design and the concrete feedback encounters. Based on this model, the chapter outlines practical challenges that might inhibit feedback practices from being productive and how we may plan for productive feedback practices in our course units.