Guidance for Learners

Feedback emPower Tools aims to help you get more value from the feedback you receive. Whether your feedback feels confusing, overwhelming, or just too vague, this website helps you to figure out how it could still benefit you, and how to respond.

Here’s how to use Feedback emPower Tools (click + to read more):

Start by choosing a PowerPack that focuses on a challenge you’re facing with feedback, or a skill you’d like to develop. Try using the PowerPack Selector Bot to help you figure out which PowerPack(s) might help you best.

Each PowerPack starts with a 3-minute video that shows you why the challenge is common, why it matters, and gives you some tips on how to start tackling it.

Try a short, interactive activity designed to test your knowledge, explore strategies, and build your confidence in dealing with that type of challenge.

If you have received feedback that you would like to dig into further, then use the Takeaway Tool to apply what you’ve learned, reflect on and make sense of your feedback, and then identify some next steps for yourself related to the PowerPack’s theme.

Every Takeaway Tool creates a low-tech, downloadable document that you can take away as a reminder of your next steps, or to help organise your feedback or your thoughts.

By using multiple different PowerPacks over time, revisiting them as needed, you can build your skills in making feedback work for you.

Guidance for educators

Feedback emPower Tools makes the feedback process more accessible, structured, and learner-led. It supports the development of feedback literacy and builds learners’ confidence and independence in taking meaningful action.

“We are really looking forward to using Feedback emPower Tools. Kieran and Rob were incredibly kind to visit our Centre and facilitate a workshop with a small group of our students. Just days after the session, one of the participating students booked time with us to review her assignment feedback and began engaging with it in a positive, reflective way. Since the workshop, we’ve noticed our students actively talking about feedback, revisiting their past comments, and beginning to track their progress over time. The key takeaways for our students have been recognising common feedback themes, understanding how to track feedback, and reframing how they approach it overall. We’re excited to incorporate FePT into our programs for new students next year.” — Alyce Lotz, Centre Manager, Country Universities Centre Southern Downs, Queensland, Australia

“As an Academic Skills Advisor, I can envisage the Feedback emPower Tools website helping our students develop their self-efficacy skills to engage more effectively with their academic feedback. The website’s research-informed activities will support our current workshops and advisor sessions, guiding learners to interpret, apply and seek feedback with confidence, while also managing the affective demands often associated with academic feedback.” — Aaron Dewhurst, Centre Manager, Country Universities Centre Clarence Valley, New South Wales, Australia

Here are some ways you can use Feedback emPower Tools resources with learners, effectively and cost-free (click + to read more):

Encourage learners to explore the PowerPacks early in their study or training cycle. For example, they might complete Practice Activities during the lead-up to receiving feedback, and use Takeaway Tools after their first round of feedback. This early engagement helps normalise feedback as a tool for learning, rather than a judgement.

Recommend specific PowerPacks to learners based on the common challenges they experience, and link to these in your course materials, feedback comments, or tutorials.

All of our activities and tools on this website can also be freely adapted or reused for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons licence. These resources use HTML5-based content called H5P, which can be embedded in any platform that supports embedded HTML code (iframes), or uploaded directly to a website using an H5P plugin, or to an LMS that supports H5P (e.g., Canvas, Brightspace, Blackboard, Moodle). Therefore, you may wish to integrate elements of Feedback emPower Tools across your full curriculum or programme, making changes to tailor the material to your specific context.

To download adaptable versions of our resources, just visit our Download & Re-use page and register your details.

Refer learners to relevant PowerPacks before or after feedback discussions. This can help them prepare, reflect, and take ownership of the conversation. In addition, use PowerPacks to foster collaborative reflection on feedback between peers, equipping them to discuss common areas of challenge and to share effective strategies.

Encourage learners to use the Takeaway Tools to reflect on their own feedback and to set goals. These tools can be used in portfolios, learning journals, or personal development plans.

Whenever you share our materials, please remember to give us appropriate credit.

If you’re downloading and re-using any of our H5P resources, your file download will include guidance on how to correctly credit each specific resource. When sharing any other materials from this website, give credit by providing the website URL as a minimum, e.g. “Original source: www.feedbackempowertools.com”, or “Credit: Kieran Balloo, Robert Nash, and Naomi Winstone at feedbackempowertools.com”. Alternatively, a formal academic citation might look something like this:

  • Feedback emPower Tools (n.d.). [Title of webpage]. Retrieved [Date] from [Page URL]

Get in touch

If you’ve used the resources on this site and found them useful, then we’d love to hear from you! Please do get in touch to tell us what was useful, how you’ve used them, or any other feedback you’d like to share.

To share your feedback, please contact us at .