From data-driven instruction to instant error spotting, learn about ways you can use technology to enhance the feedback process in your maths lessons, with Mark Anderson.
Picture the scene. You’ve just set a class of thirty Year 9 pupils off on an algebra task. You circulate, and in the first sixty seconds, you spot three different misconceptions developing across the room. Three pupils are getting it right. Five more are struggling but won’t put their hand up. The rest? You genuinely don’t know. You have forty minutes left. This is the feedback problem in maths in a single snapshot, and it’s one that technology, when chosen wisely, can genuinely help us solve.
The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) suggests that technology’s primary role in assessment and feedback should be to increase the speed and accuracy of the process, rather than simply moving traditional marking to a digital screen. 1 The focus must be on specific digital features that help teachers act quickly, ensuring no pupil spends the lesson reinforcing a misconception because of unchallenged practice.
Hattie’s idea that students welcome feedback that is “just in time, just for them, just for where they are in their learning process, and just what they need to move forward” 2 should be kept in mind when deciding which digital tools (and features) deserve our attention to enable responsive teaching.
From retrospective marking to instant feedback
The most significant barrier to effective feedback in maths is the “black box” of student thinking. A teacher sees a final incorrect answer and is left to guess the misstep(s) that led the student to it. To tackle this, prioritise tools that offer live process visibility. You could use tech tools that capture writing, allowing you to see pupils’ reasoning in real time. Platforms such as Magma Maths, Nearpod, Classkick and GeoGebra Classroom all offer variations of this, giving teachers the opportunity to see how pupils completed their work, step by step. Classroom management solutions extend this further, enabling teachers to view live thumbnails of all connected student screens simultaneously. These features help a teacher to identify an error and intervene before it becomes an embedded misconception.
Research indicates that discussing why a mathematical strategy failed is often more beneficial for growth than simply repeating the correct method. 3
Participation features, such as synchronous individual digital workspaces, allow every pupil to respond simultaneously but with their working only visible to the teacher. When a common misconception emerges, the teacher can project an anonymous incorrect answer to the main screen and open up a whole-class discussion and encourage collaboration through activities such as think, pair, share etc. Research into formative assessment confirms that this kind of all-pupil response is far more effective at finding and correcting misconceptions than traditional sampling. 4
Scaffolding and self-correction
There is a real difference between a tool that tells a pupil they are wrong and one that tells them why. The best platforms share a targeted hint that moves the pupil forward, while simultaneously sharing that same information with the teacher on a live dashboard. Most tools achieve this through rule-based logic. Some of the more sophisticated ones are beginning to use AI to generate responses specific to what the pupil actually did, rather than a generic nudge in the right direction.
For teachers and leaders, the two practical questions to ask are:
- Does this tool respond to the mistake or does it just flag that one was made?
- Does it put that information in front of the right people at the right time?
Dylan Wiliam is clear that feedback should be more work for the recipient than the person giving it.5 Features that require a pupil to engage with a hint or attempt a self-correction before requesting help are the ones worth exploring. The technology should make pupils think, not think for them. If the tool supplies the answer too readily, the pupil is robbed of the opportunity to build the resilience required for greater depth maths.
Data-driven instruction
There are tools that show misconceptions as a heat map which gives the teacher the percentage of correct answers and indicate the most common errors across the class. The teacher can use this to identify what concepts need revisiting to inform their lesson planning and any interventions. When this is fed back the pupils, it helps to close the feedback loop for the whole class, which the EEF recommends as part of effective whole-class maths teaching. 6
General guidance for tool selection and implementation
Four questions you can ask yourself when selecting a tool are:
- Does the tool show the “how”, allowing teachers to see working rather than just a final answer?
- Is the feedback in time?
- Does the tool make the pupil work, requiring a genuine retry before help is given?
- And is the data diagnostic, identifying the specific concept that is the barrier rather than offering a general score?
Technology provides the data and the speed but the teacher’s expertise determines the direction and the depth of the learning. When we get that balance right, we move closer to Hattie’s gold standard: every pupil receiving exactly what they need, exactly when they need it. 7
And finally, here are some general tips to help you implement tools, as, at the end of the day, a tool is only as good as how you use it.
- Start with visibility: If a tool only show you accuracy of answers, it is not solving the right problem.
- Make the pupil do the work: Any tool worth adopting should require pupils to attempt a self-correction before offering a hint or answer. If the technology does the thinking for them, it is undermining the learning.
- Use the data the same day where possible: Sixty seconds reviewing a heat map at the end of a lesson can transform the next morning’s lesson.
- Pedagogy over platform: Teachers need to understand the principles of how the tech tool can support formative assessment before they use it. The software should be the answer to a problem they are trying to solve or way to improve on something specific.
- Start small: One tool, one agreed use case, a small group of willing teachers. Evidence of impact from colleagues is more important than a slick product demo.
References
- EEF (2019) Using Digital Technology to Improve Learning. Available at: http://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/education-evidence/guidance-reports/digital (Accessed: 02 April 2026).
- Hattie, J. (2012) Visible Learning for Teachers. Routledge.
- Metcalfe, J. (2017)’ Learning from Errors’, Annual Reviews. 68, 465-489. Available at: https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-psych-010416-044022 (Accessed: 02 April 2026).
- Wiliam, D. (2010) ‘The Role of Formative Assessment in Effective Learning Environments’, Taylor & Francis Online, 18 (1), 5-25. Available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0969594X.2010.513678 (Accessed: 02 April 2026).
- Wiliam, D. (2011) Embedded Formative Assessment. Solution Tree Press.
- EEF (2017) Guidance Report: Improving Mathematics in Key Stages 2 and 3. Available at: https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/education-evidence/guidance-reports/maths-ks-2-3 (Accessed: 02 April 2026)
- Hattie, J., & Timperley, H. (2007), ‘The Power of Feedback’, Sage Journals. 77 (1). Available at: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.3102/003465430298487 (Accessed: 02 April 2026)
Author
Mark is a global speaker, EdTech expert, trainer, blogger, author and key note speaker, known as the ICT Evangelist. He has over 20 years of experience in the classroom. Mark is the head of education at NetSupport, an Independent Thinking associate, an MIE Expert and fellow of the Chartered College of Teaching. His latest book can be found at edtechplaybook.com.
