Feedback: Go Beyond Typos!

I once co-wrote a book (I’ve since sold the rights to my co-author so it’s fine if you don’t buy it 😝). The most interesting part of the whole experience was the feedback that teachers sent in.

• The feedback I wanted: “Ian, I love the idea of using unanswered questions to open a lesson. I’ve been running into this problem, though. (Explains specific problem)…”
• The feedback I got: “There’s a typo on page 26. You used the wrong ‘there.'”

Almost every bit of “constructive” feedback was about spelling or punctuation errors. After spending months of writing and re-writing, it was deflating to get only typo reports. Now, obviously I’d prefer perfect prose. But typos happen. The purpose of writing isn’t to spell words. It’s to communicate ideas. I wanted feedback on the ideas.

Then, most (not all) of the positive feedback was a compliment like, “I really liked your book.”

I Gave This SAME Feedback To My Students

I can’t complain because I gave my students the same kind of feedback. I’d either nitpick a tiny detail or I’d brush them off with vague, “great job” praise (here’s why you should be careful with that phrase).

Part of the problem was that I didn’t ask good questions. If I only ask low-level questions, it’s hard to give meaningful feedback. 13 × 12 is, indeed, 156. Great job!

So my most brilliant students would be told:

• “Another 100%, Katie! Great job!”
• “Actually you used ‘their’ instead of ‘there’.”

But I’d never say something like, “This idea you had here was really interesting. Did you consider…”

This Creates A Long Term Problem

All of this sets up big problems. Students get trained to worry about tiny, unimportant details. They don’t learn why their work is great, so they start assuming that their work isn’t actually that great and they’re just tricking everyone (read more about that problem here).

So, this is why I’ve been re-writing my questions, turning them into sequences that lead to something actually interesting. Something that naturally invites real feedback. You can find all of those here.

Ok, But It Was A “Great Job”

Oh, and what do you can say to a kid who, yes, did a great job? I found success when I asked questions about their work, rather than just looking for mistakes to point out. Read more about that here.