Feedback Strategies
Feedback can definitely be a complicated topic to deal with especially when giving feedback to someone who you do not know and who does not know you. I feel like different feedback styles honestly depend on the personality of the student giving the feedback. I do feel like praise is very important in most situations but is not vital when giving feedback. Yes, it makes you feel good, but if whatever you did is not good then you do not deserve the praise.
One of the articles that I read was Be a Mirror. In this article, I learned that I should take myself out of giving someone else feedback which is kind of obvious when you think about it, but I constantly find myself writing "I think" and so on when giving feedback. This is important to do because when you give feedback you should focus strictly on the person you are giving it to an not yourself. This will not only help you but will also help them the constructive feedback. This may be a difficult thing to do but it is worth it.
Another article which I truly found myself invested in was Presence, Not Praise. This article goes into the details of the difference between presence and praise. Where praise you are praising for a certain quality such as being smart, athletic, etc. And for presence you are more of stating facts such as "you did good, you must have worked really hard." There are studies in the article that prove praising students/children may actually cause them to underperform in school. This was very interesting to me. I actually had an encounter with something like this in high school which I still think about often. I was at a leadership camp and there was about a group of thirty students who had to figure out this game/problem in which we had to get everyone out of a circle using the little dots you stand on. Anyways, this took us more than 3 hours to figure out and when we finally did it we asked what we won or what we get because we finished the game. The instructor replied you should not get anything for doing what you were supposed to do and working hard. This has stuck with me because I feel like in today's society everyone thinks they should be rewarded and praised for "doing their job."
One of the articles that I read was Be a Mirror. In this article, I learned that I should take myself out of giving someone else feedback which is kind of obvious when you think about it, but I constantly find myself writing "I think" and so on when giving feedback. This is important to do because when you give feedback you should focus strictly on the person you are giving it to an not yourself. This will not only help you but will also help them the constructive feedback. This may be a difficult thing to do but it is worth it.
Another article which I truly found myself invested in was Presence, Not Praise. This article goes into the details of the difference between presence and praise. Where praise you are praising for a certain quality such as being smart, athletic, etc. And for presence you are more of stating facts such as "you did good, you must have worked really hard." There are studies in the article that prove praising students/children may actually cause them to underperform in school. This was very interesting to me. I actually had an encounter with something like this in high school which I still think about often. I was at a leadership camp and there was about a group of thirty students who had to figure out this game/problem in which we had to get everyone out of a circle using the little dots you stand on. Anyways, this took us more than 3 hours to figure out and when we finally did it we asked what we won or what we get because we finished the game. The instructor replied you should not get anything for doing what you were supposed to do and working hard. This has stuck with me because I feel like in today's society everyone thinks they should be rewarded and praised for "doing their job."
Buddy the Elf (Memegen)
Hey Christina!
ReplyDeleteI agree with you. I think that praise is important, but not vital when giving feedback. However, it is always nice to hear "good job" after you worked really hard on an assignment. But it never needs to end there. There is always room for improvement. It would be more beneficial if you say, "you did a good job, but next time, you should add a, b, and c, and that would make it even better!" I think this allows us to feel good about ourselves, but also allows us to improve ourselves.