Brittany asked: "Can you think of a situation where a grade for feedback purposes only would be useful without a subsequent assessment or opportunity to show that the feedback has been put to good use?"
I completely agree with Brittany's comment in her post that written comments or teacher-student discussions are far superior to a number or letter as feedback. but she goes on to say: "How would a teacher then assess whether or not the student is actually using this feedback unless the class was given some sort of assessment exam?"
First of all, I think a second draft of whatever the feedback was about will serve to adequately demonstrate improvement, but regardless, why do we need to know that the student is using the feedback? It would, perhaps, be slightly too directional or paternalistic to force students, by means of positive or negative reinforcement, to absorb and reproduce teacher feedback. If education is truly the goal of the educational system, this should not matter so much. Students need to be autonomous individuals. What is gained by punishing the students that don't use the feedback? Give the students the feedback, and let them go from there. Students with a passion for learning and improving will give serious, rational thought to their teacher's comments and will typically act on them.
This is the answer to the question, by the way: Feedback without some follow-up assessment is useful within a classroom full of dedicated, diligent, students. Most likely to be found (though dangerous to think of exclusively) in post-secondary education.
Question: It was not meant as rhetorical, so I shall repeat it here, why must we know if students have used the feedback given to them?
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