Some resources
ten common mistakes when giving feedback
What do I want from a feedback letter?
Your collective thoughts..
- Be clear
- Identify specific things that I did right and that I did wrong/could do better
- Give concrete observations of what you saw or heard me do
- If relevant, tie in any other data you have (e.g. observations outside this class and project; quotes; other evidence)
- Focus your letter
- Personalize feedback to what I want to hear about. Tie feedback to my stated goals, if you know these, or to 990's common themes (next slide)
- Address what you think are my main strengths and challenges, not everything
- Help me to understand why
- Do you see this skill, capability, or behavior in varied contexts or is it situational? How?
- If you are speculating (e.g., attributing a cause to a behavior), make sure you flag that as your own guess, and only include such a speculation if you think it's helpful
- Make it useful
- Suggest how to improve (what will make these improvements credible? State your source: Flag suggestions that are your own new ideas, and link others to readings, class discussions, visitor comments, or things you saw other teammates and your hosts do)
- Say it so I can hear it
- Mention effort, as well as changes you see in my behavior over the course of this class
- Some diplomacy!