Week 3: Feedback Strategies

 The first article I chose is called How to give Bad Feedback Without Being A Jerk. This article was pretty neat.  I feel like it will be especially useful for this class.  Last year I found that it was at times hard to criticize the work of others.  I nearly always found it entertaining and fun to read! I understand, though, that it would be useful to help give them feedback so that they can have progress in their writing.  The first thing that this article pointed out was saying that positive results were found by explaining why you are giving feedback.  It helped to say: I'm telling you this because I have high expectations and I know you are capable of reaching them.   I think this would help me too! Another easy thing it mentioned is simply asking if the person wants feedback.  This is an easy way to avoid confrontation or any miscommunication.  I think it makes it clear that you are just trying to help.  I found this guy's tips useful.  I liked his personal story as well.  It shows that he has really been doing this at the highest level! It definitely gives him some credibility.  

The next article I chose is called Try to Feedforward Instead of Feedback.  This article pointed out a notable fact about feedback--it focuses on the past.  I liked that this article implied that focusing on the future instead of the past would be much more beneficial.  We can use the experiences and knowledge from the past to lead towards improvements in the future.  While we can't change the past, we still can change the future.  Feedforward takes something that was bad about the past, and looks at it in a way that it can be better in the future.  It seemed like it is more focused on finding solutions rather than just pointing out the problems.  I thought it was interesting that people were able to listen more attentively to feedforward rather than feedback.  I wonder what they says about us? People found that it was easier to listen while receiving feedforward rather than feedback, due to not having to come up with a reply! I think that is definitely true.  Sometimes be focused on what I am going to say next rather than what I should be doing--listening! I liked learning about these strategies.  I like seeing what works for other people.  It's always nice to see a new perspective as well and to try to apply new things :)    

Thrill-seeking climbers climbing Mount Rainier.  

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