The classroom is a non-stop hub of feedback: test grades, assignment scores, paper comments, peer review, individual conferences, nonverbal cues, and more. Feedback is essential for student learning.
Still, students’ ability to process and use feedback varies widely. We have some students who eagerly accept feedback or carefully apply rough draft comments, while many others dread or dismiss their professors’ notes or reject exam grades as “unfair.” Although feedback is integral to our classrooms and work spaces, we often forget to teach students how to manage it.
Two Harvard law professors, Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen, argue that identifying different kinds of feedback is a good place to start. Their book Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well (2014) divides feedback into three types (35):
- Appreciation: to see, acknowledge, give credit, or thank
- Coaching: to help the receiver fine-tune skills, tweak understanding, increase knowledge, improve, or to address the giver’s feelings or a sense of relationship
- Evaluation: to score against expectations to shape decision-making
Although Stone and Heen’s book is intended for a wide audience, their ideas can help us coach students into better feedback response. Here are a few examples:
1. Teach students to reflect on their reactions to the three categories of feedback.
From the athletic field to the orchestra pit, the categories of feedback are the same. Still, we’ve seen many accomplished student athletes and musicians struggle to embrace feedback in the classroom like they do in their extracurricular activities. Asking students to reflect on the moments when they’ve been at their best and worst in response to feedback can help bridge that gap. For example, a successful basketball player in our class explained how well he responded to repeated corrections on the court but hated all coaching feedback on essays and class projects. Reflecting on the three types of feedback gave him a way to rethink various encounters. After all, it might not have seemed like his coach was using appreciation with his coaching feedback, but every made 3-point shot brought applause. Maybe, he reasoned, he needed to hear a little recognition of his effort (appreciation) before he could embrace coaching feedback in the classroom.
Consider having students reflect upon contexts other than the classroom where they process feedback. Ask students to reflect on a specific moment of negative feedback where they responded poorly or the moments when they use feedback most effectively.
2. Help students be proactive about how they ask for feedback.
Stone and Heen point out that the feedback sequencing impacts how people react. They illustrate with a comparison of two softball players, Annie and Elsie, who receive the same advice on how to strengthen their swing. Although the two players get the pointers in the same style from the same coach, they respond differently. While Annie takes the advice as belief in her potential, Elsie sees it as a sign that the coach doesn’t think she is any good.
Analyzing the feedback categories and subsequent responses can lead to self-discovery and improved communication. In Stone and Heen’s example, Elsie, the discouraged player, recognized that she needed to know what was going well before she could reasonably contextualize feedback. Without such a frame, she saw the helpful feedback as harsh and dismissive. Annie, on the other hand, admitted that she might see a compliment as patronizing and doubt the coach’s sincerity. She just wants him to provide direct guidance on to how to improve.
Students might have a bit of trouble analyzing the kind of feedback they prefer, but with practice they will become more perceptive to what motivates them and more open to receiving different types of feedback. When meeting one-on-one with students consider asking them to identify the order of feedback types they prefer. Students like Annie may know they feel more respected when a conference begins with direct pointers. Others, like Elsie, may figure out that they process coaching feedback with more ease once they receive credit for their successes.
3. Remind students which categories of feedback they’ll get or give on projects or assignments.
Although we hope our students can evaluate each type of feedback, reminders can make students better at getting and giving feedback. From peer review on essay drafts to group presentation feedback, we ask students to contribute in each of the three categories of feedback. When students self-assess, our questions align to the three categories. Here we change the evaluation category slightly to emphasize decision-making based upon feedback.
- Appreciation: Where were you most successful? What improvements stand out? What/Who deserves credit or affirmation?
- Coaching: How can knowledge expand? What skills need tweaked or fine-tuned? Where does effort need to be increased or reallocated?
- Feed-forward: What needs to change or stay the same to be successful? How does behavior need to change to align with desired outcomes? How can experience inform decision-making?
Although it takes a little work to teach students how to manage feedback, the results are worth it. Consider asking students to routinely use all three types of feedback to reflect on a recent learning experience.
The stakes are high in today’s college classroom, and it’s easy to let emotions take over. But it’s worth teaching students to move past gut reactions. With a little practice, students can improve how they reflect on specific kinds of feedback. Taking time to analyze what feedback students want and how they react to it is mutually beneficial: students become better, more proactive stewards of their own feedback, while teachers learn what kinds of feedback work best. With a bit of work, we can orient students toward healthy, productive feedback use.
Reference: Stone, Douglas and Sheila Heen. Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well. New York: Penguin Books, 2014.
Karen Sheriff LeVan and Marissa King teach at Hesston in the English and education departments and serve as directors of the first-year experience program.
This Post Has 7 Comments
One thing this article demonstrates is that faculty often give only negative feedback, not positive feedback. This comes from the “grading” based mentality, where we only read a student work to identify errors and make point deductions, then our feedback only justifies the grade by listing the errors.
But good feedback involves both telling them what they did right (positive) and what they did wrong (negative). If you don’t tell them what they did right, they may stop doing that. A coach says to a football player, “your run blocking is good because…keep doing that” That is the positive feedback. The coach then says “but your pass blocking is poor because….” That is the negative feedback.
The negative feedback also needs to be followed by information on how to correct the problem, which faculty also often leave out. “You need to slide your feet like this….” We need to provide students with not just a list of errors, but information on how to fix them.
Really, John?
Why don’t you compare the average professor’s feedback with that of an athletic or performance coach?
Why is it the CELEBRATED athletic coaches are known for their “take no prisoners” borderline abusive treatment of “student-athletes” but professors are castigated for every telling the truth about a student’s academic skills? Coaches can tell students “FU, sacrifice your body to get the job done” but a professor is VILIFIED for saying “I’m sorry but this isn’t college level writing, please consider seeking support from the [Student Center for Improbable Success]?”
Exactly! The feedback categories have really helped me, the instructor, to give each kind of feedback. The coaching part is so important but as you point out, we often forget to include it! Thanks for the comment, John.
Such cool tips for teachers. However while applying them, a teacher should not forget that there are absolutely different people and everybody requires totaly different attitude.
I appreciate the type of information provided in this article to teach students to manage feedback. A feedback model for amdinistrators to follow will help with consistency. However, are faculty providing the right type of feedback to the students in a timely manner? Feedback and coaching should be ongoing and set at regular intervals to be truly successful. You can teach a student to respond to any type of feedback but if feedback or coaching is given in an unprofessional manner it may not be well received. Faculty may not provide enough feedback that asks students to think and reflect deeply about their work.
Excellent point Dennis. Feedback is critical for learners and it must be delivered in a positive manner and in a timely fashion. If these suggestions are not followed it is unreasonable for the student to adapt in time for the next assessment. Teaching is more than lecturing, it is sculpting a mind.
Lovely platitude George, but in 20+ years of education, I have collected data that the VAST majority of students don’t even READ the feedback never mind worrying about how they process it!
A small percentage will argue over how/why their “perfect GPA” is being trashed by an professor who actually requires scholarly sourcing and a student who understands the difference between “loose” and “lose.”
An even smaller percentage will actually appreciate, process, and utilize the feedback they are given.
Remember, George, there are no more students – they are customers and … the customer is always right. Well, actually in commerce no they’re not, but academia has embraced that canard as immutable truth.