Feedback Strategies

For this week's feedback assignment, I read two articles: "Be a Mirror" by Gravity Goldberg and "How to Provide Great Feedback When You're Not in Charge" from Farnam Street.

In Goldberg's article, she talks about the importance of "being a mirror," which means that our feedback should offer a reflection of someone's work in a nonjudgmental way. She references Carol Dweck quite a bit, and talks about how this can go hand in hand with the "growth mindset" idea of Dweck's. This article seems to be directly mainly at teachers who are helping their students with reading, but the feedback ideas are applicable beyond that: be specific, focus on what the person is doing (rather than what they're not doing), focus on the process, make sure it can transfer (make sure your feedback will make sense to them in a broader sense for improving future work as well, rather than only a particular detail of this assignment), and keep yourself out of the feedback. The last point on that list was the most interesting to me. She says instead of saying "I like how you..." or "I think you..." etc., teachers should say something that doesn't involve themselves. Her idea is that this will avoid reinforcing the idea for students that they should be seeking to please adults, rather than the idea that they should be seeking to better themselves/learn.

In the article on Farnam Street, it talks about the types of feedback. It lists three: appreciation, coaching, and evaluation. Appreciation, according to the article, is essentially expressing our approval for whatever work we are giving feedback on. Coaching, on the other hand, is offering specific advice about how to improve something about the work, and evaluation is ranking the work against similar works by others or against a set of standards. Each of the types is important, but we must be strategic about when and where we use each type. Appreciation is perhaps the easiest to give, and the article recommends using it as a motivational tool. Everyone likes to hear what they're doing well, because it makes them feel good about themselves. Coaching should be used to help someone improve specific points of their work - it is important to let them know what they did well and what needs work, and to be very specific about it. According to the article, evaluation should be used infrequently and is often not productive, but is sometimes necessary. This, I don't totally agree with. I have often found that a healthy competitive spirit can be highly effective in motivating people to improve themselves, and that can't be done without a method by which to compare themselves. For example, let's say I enter a writing contest and place poorly. For me, this gives me a sense of where I am compared to others who are at a similar level as I am, and not only motivates me to improve, but also gives me examples of people whom I can look up to as I work to better myself. Finally, the article recommends putting yourself up to receive feedback first if you're in a leadership position to set a good example.

"Feedback Group Communication" by Tumisu at Pixabay

Feedback Thoughts

This week I read two articles about how we deal with negative feedback:
"Why It's So Hard to Hear Negative Feedback" by Tim Herrera of the NY Times and "Make Good Art" - which is advice by Neil Gaiman on feedback in the creative world.

Reflecting on both of these calls me back to an art class I took my sophomore year at OU, which has been to this day one of my favorite classes with one of my favorite professors. And the reason for that might seem strange: I loved that class because my professor was harsh; if your work was garbage, he was going to let you know it (I mean that in a good, now-I-can-improve way). But he did humorously and tailored to each student. For students who were more likely to be hurt by hard negative feedback, he would be more gentle; for those who, as Herrera put it, "craved" that negative feedback, he would be quite open (and often very funny) in his delivery. Yet, if he ever sensed that a student was genuinely feeling that their art was hopeless, he would build them up and defend them with voracity.

Similarly, I have had a few writing classes here where the class setting has been cultivated into one where genuine negative feedback is offered by all the students in the class on each other's work. These have been my favorite writing classes here, too.

The reason these classes have been some of the best I've taken here is that I actually really enjoy receiving critical feedback on my work. Granted, the pleasure I take in receiving it can vary greatly depending on how it's delivered and in what setting, which again goes along with what Herrera has to say, but in the way these classes have been set up, getting this negative feedback from my peers and professors has been immensely helpful to me in improving my work. Here's a shocker: you can't fix what you don't know is broken. If not for my professor pointing out that I need to work on the composition of some of my art, how would I know that was an area I needed to improve? Of course, potentially I would have reached that realization on my own, but it certainly would have taken much longer and would have required quite a few frustrated drawing hitting the floor of my trash can. Or if my peers didn't point out an inconsistency in a story I wrote, how much longer would it have taken me to catch it, if I did at all?

All this said, you do also have to filter carefully through the critiques you receive. There have been times when I have received feedback on my writing that is either a matter of opinion - in which I, as the author, have to make the ultimate say - or I can say with certainty that the person offering me the feedback is plain wrong (like if someone tries to correct what they think is a grammatical issue, but I know is actually correct as is). Not all critical feedback is useful feedback, but some of it is. It's up to us to sort out the difference.

Ultimately, it's best not to sugarcoat things, but to be honest about what needs to be improved (and be open to hearing what you can improve).

"Sugar Free"PC Mark Morgan