Feedback Strategies and My Findings

     I am honestly not very good at giving people feedback when it comes to writing. I like to think that everyone has done a good job on something, and I find it hard to find something that they could improve on or fix. Whereas, if we were talking about cheer then I am super helpful on providing corrections to help make someone's stunting or tumbling better. I think all of this stems from knowing what I am doing. I don't feel confident on correcting someone's writing because I am not the greatest writer, but I do feel confident with correcting someone during cheer because I know what I'm talking about.

    I loved the article Be a Mirror by Gravity Goldberg. The article talked about the qualities of feedback that promote a growth mindset. The qualities were to be specific, focus on what the reader is doing, focus on the process, make sure it can transfer, and take yourself out of the feedback. My two favorites were focus on what the reader is doing and take yourself out of the feedback. I specifically liked the focus on what the reader is doing because Goldberg said "...not what they're missing... a mirror cannot reflect back what is not there." A lot of feedback often includes things that the writer might be missing in the story rather than what they already have. This is where emotions can get involved because they might think their whole story was bad because the criticism was focused on what's not there. I also liked taking yourself out of the feedback. I am one to say "I think..." or "I liked how..." rather than saying "When you wrote..." I like this form of feedback because the focus is on the writer and not about the corrector. 

    I also liked the article How to Give Feedback Without Sounding Like a Jerk by Adam Grant. The beginning of the article talked about how most feedback is given as a compliment sandwich, where you praise someone, give the feedback, and then praise them again. This reminded me of how our cheer coach always says "never use the word 'but,' it just takes away everything you said before." This relates to feedback because if you tell someone that what they are doing is good and then provide them with something they should fix, it seems contradicting. The article then had great explanations on how you could deliver feedback in a better way.

    This semester I would like to be able to feel confident in providing people with feedback. Reading these articles has helped me to understand how I should relay feedback.

Feedback Loop

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