I’ve been thinking a lot about feedback recently and how this is given on the unit I work on.
For several years now I’ve been trying to figure out ways to encourage students to come forward with their work while it is in progress (not the day before submission).
In the past I have tried to build in mini crit sessions and more recently communal Padlet boards where they could post their work.
The participation for these activities is usually very low and I’ve found some information I’ve picked up on the PG Cert to be very beneficial in helping me to get a better understanding of why this is happening.
Lindsay recommended a book called Thanks for the Feedback, by Stone, D., & Heen, S. (2015). which identifies that most feedback conversations have three parts, and that you will get a lot more out of the conversation if you skilfully manage each part:
Opening – A piece often skipped. Clarify what kind of feedback you want and what kind the giver is intending to give
Body – A two-way exchange in which you need to skillfully listen, assert, manage the process, and problem solve.
Closing – Clarify commitments, action steps, benchmarks, procedural contracts, and follow-up.
The book also mentions three feedback triggers. When we get defensive because of a feedback is usually because it triggers strong reactions in one of the following areas:
- Truth triggers
- Truth triggers means understanding whether the feedback is true or not.
- Identity triggers
- Identity is the story we tell ourselves about who we are.
- If the feedback challenges the idea we have of ourselves, it’s possible it will be highly destabilising for us and we can either lash back or reject the feedback outright.
- The author says that a huge determinant of how we take feedback at an identity level is whether we have a fixed or growth mindset.
- Relationship triggers
- Do we like the person giving us the feedback?
- Did the feedback giver treat us well?
- Do we trust them / are they credible?
I realise that I have been basing my crit sessions on the model of what I experienced as a student at college, where we would put our work up and our tutors would give their feedback to the whole class. After reading this book I realise that this isn’t a a particularly helpful or inclusive model.
I previously haven’t given much time to exploring the rules of engagement in a crit and how important it is to establish a community and sense of belonging and trust in the class before students will feel comfortable in participating in this type of activity.
Embarrassingly, I also hadn’t explored the idea that there are cultural factors at play, eg. some students might be worried that any negative feedback might effect how they are perceived.
Some strategies for for future crits:
- Establish rules of engagement, create and distribute a word bank of design-related words
- For online sessions – make use of apps which allow for anonymity such as Padlet
- Split the students into smaller groups of 2-3, if online split into break out groups.
Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well By Douglas Stone & Sheila Heen (Penguin Books, 2014)