Feedback - not alone

Throughout the course we see you as 'In conversation...' with us, with each other and with the handbooks. So how does feedback fit in with this?

How do we stand with feedback - 
Firstly, feedback is not about telling you how to get an 'A' it is about helping you develop your ideas and work from the place it is when you receive the feedback. So it is not about correcting the work in terms of telling what to do but it is about developing your work. This means that where ever your work is we will always support you in developing it further. Of course as Supervisors we will let you know if you are working at a level that will not pass. We will not be letting you march of the edge of a cliff!! but the Supervisors role is about working with you to go further so feedback will not likely ever be 'Yes, this is right.'!!

Secondly, so feedback is a conversation and on-going process which is why have a 'Feedback response sheet'.  This is so that we can document the conversation in brief. It is also so that you can direct your own feedback.
The feedback response sheet is sent with any drafts you send for feedback - you should use the sheet to ask questions that direct feedback such as
'I have used quotes to give examples of XXX but I wonder if too much of the essay is in the voice of others because of it.'
or practical questions
'I was not sure how to quote an interviewee I have used "" instead of '' for quotes from interviewee and put them I the bibliography but their interviews are not published so should they be in the bibliography?'

The Feedback response form should also be used after a Skype Supervisor tutorial (one-to-one) summarise the discussion and inform a blog about the tutorial.

The Feedback Response Form is therefore a document of learning, discussion and conversation for you to refer to as you study.  It supports the idea you are not alone in your study (you are in conversation) but not being alone does not mean you are just waiting to be told what to do.

A note: emailing your tutor should not be your first response to not understanding something!! First go back to the Handbook that is what they are for to explain the course, ideas and direct, then read some blogs of people who have done the Module you are on. Then have some time to think.

On feedback

I recently posted the article I wrote with MAPP DTP alumni Rose Payne about feedback. We talked about the post in some discussion group conversations. The article talks about feedback being transactional – going between student and teacher (two-way). Not just given to student from teacher (one way). The feedback is not to tell you if it is good or not but to stimulate further thought. The further thought is going be present or not yet activated in all your work. For instance, if you get feedback on an AOL that you should use more literature to support your points. That is going to be the same across all your writing or if it isn’t the same across all your writing then have a look at the essays you have done where you have used more literature and apply it to all your work. You must already know how to do it so do it for all the work then.

Or if you have used even less in all your other work. Have at look at the AOL where you got the feedback (even though you used more literature than your other essays) and think about what you did to use for literature and do more of it.

Helen and I are going to flag up and let you know URGENTLY if we think something will fail. We are not giving feedback to tell you pass or fail. The feedback is not to say yes this is good you don’t have do any more to this!!!

The point of sending the draft

1)    Time management: The main point was that we had noticed people were leaving writing all their AOLs until the last minute and sometimes not getting them done in time. By giving you a draft deadline it meant you had to commit of all the AOLs you would be writing and also have thought about each of them

2)    Staring a conversation: On getting the drafts I have read them all – I have chosen one that can produce feedback that resonates across all that were sent. I have not marked each one as if I was marking a school paper – it is not summative feedback that ends with you knowing if you passed. That has everything to do with the emancipation of learning from the teacher instructing to the teacher facilitating and partnering in the learning journey we have spoken about in discussions etc…

3)    Stimulating your ideas: The feedback provides ideas to think about. I don’t understand why more people don’t then want to take up the opportunity to discuss it. – that is part of the transaction of feedback. It is a two-way conversation.

I am worried you are suffering in silence – or feeling your are in the deep-end alone. There needs to be a trust that Helen and I are not setting you up. We’ll let you know any major problems. There needs to be a feeling of interaction, discussion and ownership through talking about the feedback. Maybe you don’t agree with some comments, maybe you don’t follow some comments. Maybe you have written something else and want to know if you have addressed a particular observation in your feedback. You could send it saying –

After your comment about use of Literature: ‘please can you look at my use of literature in these four paragraphs of my new draft of AOL 3. It is not the AOL you feedback on but I felt of all my AOLs I use literature lease in this one. So I thought I would work on this one for that. I feel I have xxxxxx and I wonder if your think I need to xxxxx“ then we can read look at that specific point and give further feedback.

So, it is not just you sending things until you get an good job well don’t comment. It is about dialogue challenge and interaction.

Adesola

Thoughts on Feedback

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?

First Sunday Group chat - November 6th

November 6th is the first Sunday group chat.  Helen will be initiating it (in other words look out for a call from her skype address on that Sunday). We have a morning and afternoon one:
11am (time in London)
or
5pm (time in London)

Please comment below to let us know which one you will join. Remember to also write a tiny bit about what you want to talk about, what you are thinking or what question you are exploring etc... so that we all have sometime to think about each others conversation starter before the call. looking forward to hearing from you

Adesola

Feedback to start...

I wrote this for BAPP also:

Staring back on Module Two and Three you will have and feedback from your last module along with your grade. The feedback is a starting point to begin this terms module. With Those people starting Module Three this is particularly important.

The feedback you would have got for Module Two is directly about the inquiry process you are about to start. Module Threes you are asked to begin by responding to this feedback. Make your response direct to the feedback. You could cut and paste what the feedback says and directly respond under it. You can go through each point like this:

From feedback sheet “Interviews: You  state you are not looking to facilitate them answering your question. You are interested in what their experiences are (as you say qualitative approach). Therefore, to compare their answers it is easier to ask them in the same format. Different approaches to your interview method support different responses. How would you compare response if the difference has been created by how you asked the questions? Please respond to this in your ‘response to Module Two feedback’ document.”

Response: I re-read Smith (2005) chapter on interviews techniques. I had been interested in using different techniques because it seemed they would all create interesting different answers and I wanted a range of answers. But thinking about my inquiry I realised I was planning to  force the answers to be different by making the questions different. I need to conduct the interviews in a similar way and look for the different in the answers as part of the analysis I do. I am realising the analysis part of the inquiry is actually more work and time than the data collection. I think I got a bit carried away with the data collection designs and I have decided to keep it simpler. Therefore, I will be using semi-structured interviews with all the interviewees. I will be beginning each interview with the same set of three prompt questions.”

Try to answer/ address all the feedback through a clear response to the points made. Remember you don’t have to just do what the feedback suggests. You are responding to it. If you do not want to change something as the feedback suggests explain why and what you thinking is about it further.

What do you think?

Looking forward to reading your comment below.