Below is a great little video called “Austin’s Butterfly” (2012). This video shows how a first grade student completes a scientific drawing of a butterfly.
Initially Austin drew what he thought was his “best work”, an accurate image of a butterfly but he soon realised that his peers did not agree. They went on to provide him with specific feedback on how to improve his butterfly. Perhaps in some ways it probably felt quite critical to an 8 year old. Austin took the feedback on-board and slowly made small improvements to his butterfly and the end product speaks for itself.
Feedback is not a way of providing all the information so the student masters a task. We need to instruct/show first and then provide some ideas on what might improve their first attempt. The expectation (in my opinion) should not be perfection, just improvement on the previous attempt.
Feedback goes both ways, making mistakes and not getting things right the first time is more the norm than not. Let’s get one thing right before we move onto the next thing.
I often ask the class for feedback. Have I done a good job explaining this? What have I done to confuse you? Amazingly 9-10 year olds can provide pretty accurate and succinct feedback!
I guess feedback is not “the answer”, it’s just another way of improving things. It shouldn’t be negative and needs to be within the person’s capabilities to fix.
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