Hattie and Timperley's landmark review describes feedback as one of the biggest influences on learning. A later meta-analysis of 435 studies by Wisniewski, Zierer, and Hattie found a medium average effect.

When feedback arrives matters too, and so does what it says. Van der Kleij, Feskens, and Eggen pooled 70 results from 40 studies of feedback given to students in computer-based learning. Three of their findings line up with how feedback on submission works in Kiddom Math.

• Delayed feedback had smaller effects. Feedback on submission removes the wait between a student's answer and the comment on it.
• Feedback that explains had the largest effect. It outperformed feedback that only marks an answer right or wrong or supplies the correct answer. AI-Feedback writes about the student's own reasoning and the next step, not a checkmark.
• Effects were larger in mathematics than in the other subjects the study compared. AI-Feedback runs in Kiddom Math, grades 3 through 12.

The finding on timing isn't new. Hattie and Timperley's review summarizes an earlier meta-analysis of 53 studies by Kulik and Kulik that found an advantage for immediate over delayed feedback.

The reason is practical. In math, today's lesson builds on yesterday's. A student who reads a comment while the problem is still on the screen can fix the error before it travels into the next lesson. A student who reads it two days later has already moved on to work that depends on the concept they missed.

Until now, AI-Feedback waited for you to post it. Now you can send it to students the moment it's ready. When you assign or edit an eligible lesson or practice assignment, the Options section of the Assign workflow has a switch called Automated feedback. Turn it on, and question-level feedback goes straight to students after they submit.

Your last choice carries forward as the default for the next assignment you create, and you can change it on any assignment. Turn it on for daily practice, and leave it off for a lesson where you want to read every response first. Only the assigning teacher can change it. Co-teachers can see whether it's on.

Here is what that looks like in a Grade 6 Kiddom Math lesson. Lesson 11 of the ratios unit, Representing Ratios with Tables, teaches students to organize equivalent ratios in a table. One of its practice problems reads: an orchard produces 3,000 pounds of olives a year, and it takes 20 pounds of olives to make 3 liters of olive oil. How many liters can the orchard make in a year?

The answer is 450 liters. A common partial answer is 150. The student correctly finds that 3,000 pounds is 150 groups of 20 pounds, then stops one step short and treats each group as 1 liter. That student understands more than the wrong number suggests.

When the student submits, AI-Feedback immediately begins analyzing their answers. The comment appears on the same submission page when it's ready, so the student doesn't need to reopen the assignment. The comment names what they got right, points to the missing step, and ends on a question they can answer right away.

Kiddom also improved how it scores and comments on these answers. Scoring is better at recognizing partial understanding, like the 150 groups above, and suggested scores more closely match how teachers score. The feedback is shorter and more direct, which reflects how teachers provide math feedback in Kiddom.

AI-Feedback considers the assignment details, the learning goals, your preferences, and what the student already knows. That is why the comment above can talk about groups of 20 pounds instead of offering a generic "check your work."

In the grading view, every comment that has gone to students shows its status and the time it was posted, so you can see at a glance what each student has been sent. From there you have three moves.

• Let it work. When a comment hits the mark, there is nothing more to do. The student already has a clear next step, and you skipped the posting step.
• Retract it. If you'd rather a student not see a comment, Retract takes it down after a quick confirmation. It disappears from the student's view right away.
• Rewrite it. Editing creates a private draft marked "Edited · Not posted." The student keeps seeing the original until you post your version, so a half-finished edit never reaches them.

Scores work the way they always have. A suggested score fills the score box in your view only. Students see a score only after you post it, and you can change it before you do.

A few practices help students turn a fast comment into real progress.

• Give students a reason to act. What feedback says matters as much as when it arrives. The Education Endowment Foundation's guidance asks teachers to time feedback so it moves learning forward and to plan how students will use it. Fast feedback helps most when students act on it right away, in a revision or the next problem.
• Read the first few. Skim the first submissions on a new assignment to see the next steps your students are getting, then check in as the rest come in.
• Use it for practice. Feedback on submission is built for lesson and practice assignments. Mid-unit assessments, end-of-unit assessments, and tests are excluded to maintain exam integrity.

For step-by-step details on turning it on, what students see, and reviewing posted comments, see Kiddom's help guide to AI features.

Students grow more from feedback that reaches them while they can still use it. Feedback on submission gets a useful next step to them while the problem is fresh, and it takes the posting step off your plate. Whether feedback goes out on submission, what stays, and what counts is still your call.

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