How to give feedback to students after bad grades I realize that I have some difficulty giving feedback to students when they have expected to have a good grade and/or they have invested a lot of time. My impression is that there is a trade-off between clearly pointing out the weaknesses of the students' paper and, on the other hand, motivating them to continue and making it clear that such feedback is part of the normal learning process. How can oral feedback be structured to ensure that both are possible?
From my perspective as a PHD student (the other side of the spectrum) I feel that there are some crucial aspects to giving helpful and encouraging feedback:

Give the student constructive criticism. Give them the feeling that you are supportive of what they did (regardless of quality) and that you are giving feedback to improve their work in the future. Make them feel safe. Speak about what could be done better in the future and not about what went wrong or what they &quot;should have done&quot;.
Emphasize both the good and the suboptimal parts of their work. It is important to balance both positive and negative feedback.
Avoid words like &quot;however&quot; and &quot;but&quot;. It is almost always discouraging to hear positive feedback followed by a &quot;however&quot;. It (in my opinion) completely devalues what was said beforehand.
Check in if they understood your criticisms correctly to avoid misunderstandings.

I hope my answer is at least somewhat helpful to you, if not, you now have the possibility to practice and give me your feedback! :)