This paper reports on a case study conducted in an American university investigating the role of feedback within a distance education environment. Based on data gathered from online and hybrid undergraduate students in a teacher education program and supported by existing research, we describe how we support online learners by implementing a feedback system that incorporates multi-draft formative assessments and various feedback strategies. We describe these strategies (i.e. explicit feedback directions and feedback surveys) as well as data from formative assessments to demonstrate the impact of clear expectations and feedback on student performance in distance education. We present recommendations for online feedback and propose a feedback model for further study.