Week 4 - Feedback Strategies

(a post-it note with 'feedback?' written on it, flickr.com)

The first article I read was from kqed.org (found here) which talks about different of praise and when to praise versus when to give feedback. Now, I've not really seen this in action as I am the youngest child and have never really spent time around younger family members like cousins. But I do work with children and I notice that the children that are generally more open to a conversation are generally the ones who aren't bribed or threatened to get rid of the idea of fear (all relevant to my job, I swear). 

This leads me to believe that rather than telling a kid, or person, to not do this or always do that, it's much better to tell them why or explain their actions and the chain effect it has. 'If you cry, your sister may see and get upset. That's okay, because we'll tell her that sometimes we get scared but that's normal' is far more effective, in my experience, than 'don't cry, you'll scare your sister'. It works similarly with feedback. It's important to explain why you are giving this feedback and to also take the personal emotions and bias out of it. You're only trying to better what's in front of you, not change the person who created it.

This is further explained in the next article from amblesideschools.com (found here). It's about five reasons to avoid 'good job!' and why. The first point is manipulating kids. It's important to say 'please clean up your toys otherwise someone can have an accident and break one which is upsetting but if we clean up, that can be avoided' rather than 'clean up because it's messy'. Kids don't understand why messy is bad. Again, when giving feedback, if someone doesn't understand your point, how can they improve?

I also like the point about praising by talking less and asking more. Don't give your own opinion but ask what they enjoyed. This can be used in feedback too. If someone created something they hated, 9 times out of ten, it's not going to be as good as something they love. So it's important to ask what people enjoyed or didn't enjoy, could you be of any assistance, etc. Take the judgement out of it. Feedback isn't critiquing. That would be called critiquing.