S4E4 - Feedback
Overview
Teaching: 10 min
Exercises: 10 minQuestions
How to get and handle feedback?
Learning outcomes
Describe how to get and handle feedback.
Fist of five feedback
Formative assessment should be frequent
- Ideally every 5 min
- At least gni 10-15 min
- Attention span: 10-15 min
- Refocus attention
Systematic immediate feedback
- When?
- Ideally at natural breakpoints such as ending an exercise, shifting to a different subject and right after a wrap-up session.
- How?
- It should be very focused and expedite in execution. The instructor should think of a clearly stated question that has a binary (Yes/no) or garaded (0-5) response.
This is Instant Feedback.
Feedback from learners
- Assessing learner reactions to teachers and teaching thus providing context-specific feedback that can improve teaching within a particular course.
- Assessing learner reactions to class activities, assignments, and materials thus giving instructors information that will help them improve their course materials and assignments.
- Assessing learner reactions to course organisational aspects, thus providing the organiser information that will help him or her to improve the course organisation;
Feedback is hard
Dealing with (bad) feedback
Trainees feedback should be considered along other forms of quality evidence:
- Review what they have effectively learned (in exams)
- Consider your own experience of teaching
- Discuss with colleagues and friends
- Look at the feedback from past sessions of the same course
- Look at the response rates
- Look at the counter examples (contradictions)
- Look at the repetitive patterns (not at only one single answer)
- Breathe deeply
- Humans focus more on negative feedback than on positive (you are not alone)
- Try to see the point in the criticism, learn from it
- Don’t take it personally (easier said than done). Try to focus on what they say about what you do (not who you are)
Learn and teach others how to give good feedback
Short-term feedback questionnaire
Key Points
Feedback is hard.