Thoughts on
Feedback.
I have just been
talking to BA people about their feedback
to our feedback for Module Two !!! It
sounds back and forth. But I see feedback as a two-way street. It is not about
us telling you what to do in the disguise of feedback. For me feedback is about
giving someone more ideas to think about or another way to look at the same
thing. Therefore feedback on my feedback is just a response saying what it made
you think of, it’s a discussion. It is not a about defending something but
about walking together through an idea. Often in the past you may have been
given ‘corrections’ as ‘feedback’ but I think they are different things. Corrections
are one-way, feedback is two-way.
Here is something
I recently wrote with a colleague about feedback in the dance classes.
What do you
think? Feedback in the comments below!!
“At the beginning of our
inquiry we were interested in exploring how students received ‘feedback’. We
thought this would involve discovering more about the forms and
ways feedback can be communicated to students, particularly how a climate
of negative feedback can be avoided in the classroom.
However, as we carried out the
research we realized that merely looking at how feedback is communicated
constructs feedback as one directional.
We questioned whether we had
been placing enough importance on the notion that feedback can be transactional. Following John Dewey, we take the term transactional
to indicate dynamic, co-created relationships and environments (Dewey 2008).
We realized that how feedback
is communicated is significant, of course, but the means by which it is
recognized as feedback by students, and how it is responded to is of equal
bearing. This led us to consider the importance of students’ (and teachers’) critical
thinking in our classrooms, as we felt student responses to feedback is as
important as the action of giving it. By critical thinking we are suggesting skills
of evaluation that allow for synthesis of ideas and support the ability to have
shifts in perception. Particularly, for our students to develop the analytical
skills to let go of an essentialist approach to their perception of themselves
as dancers, and instead critically challenge their habitual movements and
notions of what dance can be. Thus we see critical thinking as supporting the
co-construction and permeability of a transactional approach to feedback.”
(You can read the Whole thing in the MDX on-line
library, here is the citation Akinleye, Adesola & Rose Payne (2016)
“Transactional Space: Feedback, critical thinking, and learning dance
technique”, Journal of Dance Education, Vol.16 Iss: 4, pp.144-148, http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15290824.2016.1165821
DOI: 10.1080/15290824.2016.1165821?
Hi Adesola,
ReplyDeleteGenerally, the idea of feedback is considered as an evaluative or corrrective information about a particulr work or action. I always thought once a student receives a feedback they will work towards it to improve. As you said, a student is expected to anyalise critically and change perception from a dancer's point of view to focus on habitaul movements and notions of what dance can be...is something that I never thought I did. I will defeinetly think beyond the essentialst appraoch. Thanks.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteHi Adesola, I read your article with great interest after our last Skype meeting. I share the same opinion that feedback in a technique class is seen as a correction and perceived as negative, yet I often wonder what my students think when I give them positive feedback? It seems to be irrelevant and of little worth. Some seem to already have a pre-conditioned opinion with feedback, so it doesn´t surprise me that it is tossed to one side. I don´t believe that my students engage in critical thinking (without my assistance) in my classes, so this may be a good place to start to see if it is possible to alter their conceptions of feedback. Samantha
ReplyDelete