Feedback

Last updated on 2024-12-04 | Edit this page

Overview

Questions

  • How can we use feedback to help new Instructors improve their teaching?
  • How can we use feedback to improve our own teaching?

Objectives

  • Analyze how Carpentries teaching practices align with strategies for designing effective practice opportunities.
  • List two important characteristics of effective feedback.
  • Explain strategies for helping trainees and new Instructors give good feedback.

Reading:

From How Learning Works:

  • Chapter 6: What Kinds of Practice and Feedback Enhance Learning? (p. 130 - 161)

From The Carpentries Instructor Training curriculum:

Other:

Discussion Questions

  1. What stood out to you from this week’s reading? Think of things that made sense in light of your own experience, things you’re not convinced of, or questions that you have.

  2. When trainees give feedback, especially when giving feedback to themselves, they are VERY likely to comment on the number of times they said “um” or “uh” during their practice presentation. How would you go about helping them to level up their feedback to address more impactful features?

  3. How can you (as an Instructor Trainer) use information in the pre and post-Instructor Training surveys to improve your teaching? How can we help Instructors make good use of pre and post-workshop surveys?

  4. In the context of a Carpentries workshop, what role does an Instructor play in creating opportunities for practice? What role does a helper play?

  5. In what ways do learners in a workshop get feedback on their progress? Is that feedback likely to meet the criteria for useful feedback outlined in this chapter? Why or why not?

  6. How can we, as a community, encourage and facilitate co-Instructors (and co-Trainers!) to share feedback with one another and live our core value of “Always Learning”?

Key Points

  • Feedback is an essential part of Carpentries workshops and Instructor Training. Trainees often need guidance on how to invite, give, and receive good feedback.
  • The ways that a team of Instructors and Helpers manages the learning environment of a workshop can have a profound effect on how much effective feedback learners receive. Instructor Training should make trainees aware of this and give them strategies to maximise their impact.