By: Megan Prats

6/21/2014

Feedback is beneficial if the student is receptive to it. Feedback delivered to an unreceptive student is like pouring a gallon of oil in a pot of water hoping it will sink to the bottom – it’s not going to happen. Thus, how you deliver the student’s feedback so that the student is consistently receptive to it is imperative.

You have to juggle a spectrum of feedback to provide to the student – from the good to the bad. The student needs to hear both so that she develops an objective view of her own learning. There’s no one way to go about delivering feedback, however, a variety of forms of delivery usually works best.

• Positive

Positive feedback is usually given when the student has accomplished something. First, you can deliver this positive feedback verbally with words of praise. For instance, “Excellent job using your critical thinking skills!”, or “I admire your effort.”. You can compliment the positive feedback with an increase in the student’s 2learn® Bank if the student deserves it. Thus, you can tell her “Because you did such a fantastic job using your critical thinking skills to solve the problem, “I’m going to reward you with a 2learn® Dollar.”  Finally, another way to reward the student for a job well done is allow her some free time or liberty to chose what to do next. For instance, my drum set students normally get to jam to the song of their choice after doing well in the lesson. Or, the language students can spend time just conversing instead of learning new material.

• Negative

Negative feedback is harder to deliver as you are more vulnerable to complaint after negative feedback. However, negative feedback (pointing out what was “wrong”) is just as important as positive feedback as the student will reach a plateau and stay there if she doesn’t know what to improve to get better. Because you want to be honest with the student without hurting her feelings, you have to walk a fine line.

First, make sure that the negative feedback is legitimate as false negative feedback will only upset the student. Thus, do not accuse the student of not playing enough measures in the drum set battle when you, yourself, lost count of the measures. If you are unsure as to whether or not the student made a mistake, it is best to just not divulge it and wait to provide negative feedback when you’re more confident of it’s validity.

Second, make sure to provide negative feedback in a constructive way. If you provide the feedback so that the student gets defensive, the student will no longer listen to you. Thus, try to deliver the feedback with a clear identification of the issue, and criticisms on just the work and not the person (if it’s not called for).

Finally, make sure to mix the positive and the negative as legitimate negative feedback can cause a defensive reaction in the student. Thus, point out something that the student did well before mentioning the negative feedback. Also, point out the positives of the negative. For instance, “you did not hold the drumstick correctly while playing the jazz pattern on the ride cymbal but, that technique will work really well while playing rock music.”

In general, you want to deliver negative feedback as positively as possible so that the feedback is absorbed by the student and that you continue to deliver a fun learning experience to the student.

Effective feedback leads to results, ineffective feedback causes the student to struggle longer. Thus, deliver the feedback in an effective way so that you may see the fruits of your labors!

© Megan Prats 2014