Feedback as a practice of mediation
When we sit down to give students feedback, we're at the intersection of a teaching process and a learning process: on the one hand, instructors have designed assignments, and they’ve planned and delivered lectures and sections; on the other hand, students have attended lectures and sections, and they’ve completed assignments. Feedback is the process that mediates these two moments by a) assessing how much was learned through the teaching (using students' work as evidence) and b) communicating that assessment (using evidence-based comments).