The Gift of Feedback

Today I’ve been reading the feedback my students wrote for each other and for me in one of my classes. The class has nearly 100 students, so I’m using a Team-Based Learning (TBL) strategy to teach it. One important tenet of TBL is that students evaluate their team members. We have one evaluation halfway through the course, so students will have the feedback early enough to use it to make improvements before the final evaluation at the end of the term. The final evaluation counts toward the final grade.

Each student writes something they appreciate about each member of their team and something they would like to request of that team member. In this way, each student receives some praise and something that they need to work on. Some students really shy away from writing any requests, which is regrettable because I think it will really help them throughout their lives to be able to give constructive criticism.

I can think of many situations in which tactful and well timed constructive criticism has greatly improved my life. I’ve been married 20 years and I can tell you that gracefully giving and receiving feedback is what has kept us together this long. Of course we weren’t always good at this. In the beginning of our lives together, I was the one who was constantly giving feedback to my husband—sometimes not very tactfully, and he was the one who kept everything inside until he reached the point where the dam broke. He was very much like a volcano, dormant for a while but prone to explode. We loved each other, but we had no idea how to communicate and give each other feedback properly. My ongoing narration of things that I was displeased with was like a constant drip—a sort of torture for him. And his eruptions were hurtful and confusing for me since he often gave me feedback on a multitude of things that had bothered him over the last 6 months, sometimes things I had done or said that I couldn’t even remember. I would be in tears and certainly not in the mood to improve myself to please him.

So, feedback needs to be timely and offered along with a spoonful of sugar (a bit of praise for something that the person does well). This is something my husband and I have learned to do, though we still make a lot of mistakes.

Feedback has also been important with my children, my friends, and in my workplace. It can be very very difficult to give feedback to someone who is not a family member. I can still clearly remember times that I have followed my husband’s volcanic example and kept things inside to the point of being totally in tears and unable to coherently explain the reason for my distress to my employer or coworkers because I had let stress build up inside of me and waited too long to say anything.

So, dear students, I hope that you all learn to give and receive feedback in a timely and constructive manner. It won’t just help you as a student, but as a professional, a spouse, a parent, and a friend.

Think of feedback as the best gift you can give someone. Take a moment to decide how you want to “wrap” your gift, and take advantage of the endless possibilities for improvement in yourself and others.