Tags
constructive criticism, education, English Literature, feast, feedback, learning, PGCE, post 16, teaching, training
Today was a uni day.
The pressure of our placements are upon us and everyone seems to be tired, panicked and very simply, quite out of it! A lot have already started teaching with a few hours a week and it’s already getting to them. It’s pretty much the same for me. Very soon I too will be picking up more hours and then come November, I’ll have my initial observation O_O
But it’s still nice to go into uni and see how everyone else is doing. And the great thing about meeting other teachers is the discussions you have about teaching. Today’s key theme in the lectures were how to give feedback to students. In educational terms, you call it THE FEEDBACK SANDWICH. Why? Because you’re supposed to fill your feedback with good news, bad news and then a plan of action. All of which is surrounded by a bun of ‘assessment’.
So we did a bit of role play and I had to play the part of giving feedback to my partner on their work. However, we all got into a big discussion on how far should you go with praise and criticism. After a long discussion we all decided that you will know how to balance it out depending on the student. For example, if the student is stuck up, you’ll pull him back down to earth with some ‘tough love’, but if they are of an anxious nature you will be gentle and encouraging.
Funny incident of the day:
One of the other trainees in my seminar group asked how to give feedback to terrible work produced by a student even though you know they worked hard on it. This is how it went:
Trainee: His work was rubbish and I didn’t know how I could praise it
Us: So what did you say when you saw the work???
Trainee: “Wow, that’s…good. I don’t know how you did that, but that’s something else!” 😀 😀 😀
I haven’t laughed so hard in a long time
macenachan 