"Who *writes* that??!!!"

....When Feedback Goes Awry....

Last night in one of my classes, we were all giving short presentations in pairs or small groups. As observers of the presentations, our task was to write one strength and one suggestion for improvement for each presentation. The feedback cards were anonymous, and the professor explained that these cards were for ourselves, to help us to see what we did well and what we need to work on. At the end of the class, after everyone had presented, the professor handed the cards back to each group and had us review the comments to incorporate the class feedback into a self reflection on the project, to be handed in later.

Well, as we're all reading our comments, we suddenly hear a slightly shocked "who writes that?!!!" In response to one presentation, someone had written "there was some attempt to be interesting, but overall this presentation was mind-numbingly boring."

Ok, really not nice. Our professor was pissed. This is a class full of aspiring teachers! And I have to agree. I approach this program as a professional, and sorry but that's not acceptable behavior in the workplace. Especially when an essential part of your job is to model good behavior for others.

These cards don't impact grades, and the incident just served to diminish our professor's respect - even if just a bit - for our class. She acknowledged it was just one person. But who is that person? What did he or she really gain from writing that? I think the recipient of the comment was more shocked and offended that anyone would write such a thing than she was personally insulted.

The bottom line is that feedback is so important to us, but it absolutely must be constructive. Another point our professor made about the incident was that we only found out about it because the girl said something; when we have a class full of students, we don't know that they'll say anything, and we don't know how comments like that can affect them later in the day, week, month, or in their lives. We need to be cognizant that students need to learn how to give and take feedback. And we need to practice positive, constructive feedback ourselves - which often includes saying things that do not want to be heard, but in a polite and positive way.

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