Providing Feedback
This module will educate consultants on the value of different types of feedback and strategies for how to provide effective, constructive criticism to clients.
The Importance of Receiving Feedback
Intentional interpersonal communication is central to successful Communication Center work.
“Tutors are the front-line” for the center; students seeking help work closely with a tutor, who has the potential to greatly help or painfully frustrate the student. Tutors’ interactions with students will be influenced by what they are trained to do…”
(Dannels & Gaffney in Yook and Atkins-Sayre, 2012, p. 105)
Why is Feedback Important?
The main goal of providing feedback in a peer-educational setting is to help your peers learn ways to improve their performance. This process should be a neutral/positive learning experience for students. Negative experiences with receiving feedback can discourage individuals and can put a damper on their effort and self-confidence moving forward with a public speaking project. It is important to provide feedback in a manner that does not leave your client leaving your communication center feeling defeated.
Characteristics of Effective Feedback
Giving feedback to your peer clients includes explaining what they are doing correctly and incorrectly. It is crucial that when you are giving feedback, you are taking into consideration that everyone is different and therefore will respond differently to constructive feedback. Throughout your consultations you will begin to notice how your peer client responds and, upon finishing this module, you will be able to assess the situation and adjust the delivery of feedback accordingly.
Different Types of Feedback
Verbal
Verbal, or oral, feedback refers to when the evaluator or audience provides the speaker feedback immediately following their presentation. This type of feedback can be incredibly helpful as it can be provided in a timely fashion.
Written
Written feedback is provided to a speaker later following their presentation. This type of feedback often records what a student has done well and what needs improvement. It is important that written feedback details where students have met learning objectives and where improvement is required.
Formative
Formative feedback can be verbal feedback given directly to a student in real time or written feedback that the student can refer to later. This type of feedback occurs during the learning process and can help students understand how they can improve and learn strategies that can help them evolve their public speaking skills. It is important when providing formative feedback to include clear details and examples if possible.
Example: Reviewing homework problem sets during office hours or online review meetings
Summative
Summative feedback is given at the end of a learning process and provides a final evaluation of a student’s skills and knowledge. This type of feedback could be in the form of a final exam or a grading rubric. Summative feedback can help students conceptualize how much progress they have made in meeting learning objectives. It is important to note that this type of feedback can impact a student’s future academic choices and influence how a student may view themselves in an academic context.
Kinesthetic
Kinesthetic feedback is most successfully given in the middle or end of a consultation. This type of feedback requires full engagement from the client and the consultant. Kinesthetic feedback can help students understand “how to” and replicate success when it comes to certain aspects of their speech. It is important to find the balance between guiding your client through a process vs. Doing it for them when providing this kind of feedback.
Example #1: Rather than telling your client that they were lacking hand gestures, have the student practice and exemplify the suggested hand gestures.
Example #2: If a student is struggling with oral citation, choose one to walk through with them. Analyze what must be included in an oral citation and the proper formatting. Encourage the student to apply these steps to another one of their oral citations.
Providing Good Feedback:
When & How
When To Give Feedback
Timing:
As a consultant, it is important that you learn to recognize the appropriate time and way you provide feedback to your peer clients. Timing is key when it comes to providing effective feedback. Once you have reviewed a client’s speech outline or listened to their practice delivery, generally, it is encouraging for the student if you begin by offering them a compliment. Jumping right to the constructive criticism can be overwhelming, especially if the client arrived at their appointment nervous.
When to Provide Feedback for Different Types of Appointments:
If a student is working with you during the brainstorming/development phase of a public speaking project, it is appropriate to provide feedback as you go. Answer their questions and have detailed conversations with them about the requirements they may need to fulfill in their project.
On the other hand, if a student visits your communication center to practice the delivery of a public speaking assignment, it may be more appropriate to wait until they have concluded to provide feedback. This way allows them to complete their practice run without any disruptions or distractions.
Assessing Client Attitudes:
When operating in an environment that involves working with students, you will encounter all different types of attitudes and emotions. During your time as a consultant, you will likely experience having an appointment with a student who is in a negative mood.
How to Give Good Feedback
Language & Word Choice:
The vocabulary you use when speaking to clients can affect how they interpret the feedback they are receiving. It is crucial that you are mindful of the wording you use when providing feedback for this very reason.
The following example statements portray how framing can alter one’s interpretation of information.
Example #1: “Your introduction does not currently meet the rubric requirements.”
Example #2: “Continue going over your introduction and the rubric. This is your opportunity to make improvements!”
As you can see, the first example focuses on a negative connotation. Remember that your client is coming to work with you before their assignment deadline. Be sure to dedicate your feedback towards encouraging your client to use the time that they have before the deadline to make improvements.
Tone:
Not only does your word choice make a difference when providing feedback, but your tone of voice also has an effect as well! When peer consulting, it is important to maintain a welcoming and productive environment. Communicating in a kind and positive tone when working with students can contribute to easing any nerves they may have and encourage them to feel more comfortable in your communication center.
Alternatively, if one were to greet students with more of a flat affect, they may be less open to sharing their work and ideas with their consultant. This type of tone can inhibit productivity and negatively affect students’ ability to feel comfortable.
Client-Guided Feedback
As individuals, we know when we feel prepared or not for public speaking events such as presentations, class discussions, debates, and more. In most cases, your client will know and feel if they have not prepared well to deliver a speech.
There is nothing wrong with being underprepared, this is the opportunity to have your client reflect on their performance and hear their thoughts on areas to improve. A few techniques that can be used to give this type of feedback are:
1. Ask Questions: Begin asking the client their thoughts on how they performed. If a client feels unaware of how they did, you as a consultant express questions including key terms towards them to think about to help jog self-reflection.
Questions to consider asking your client:
How was your tone throughout the speech?
Do you feel you articulated well?
Did you notice whether you had any verbal fillers throughout your speech?
Was your eye contact consistent?
Did your facial expressions and gestures communicate the exigence of your speech?
2. Record a Video: With consent from the client and your communication center, ask client if they are comfortable with you videotaping their performance on an authorized camera source. The intent for the video is for the education of the client and no other uses. Play the video back and allow your client to reflect on their speech performance.
Recording a video serves a great purpose as it is a great visual element for your client to see how their performance shall be displayed to their audience. By seeing their performance, a client can apply what errors (consistent pausing, lack of eye contact, stutter, etc.) they make during their speech and correct it. Individually, we learn more by providing feedback than by receiving it. This allows clients to be more effective in applying their knowledge of public speaking practices.
3. Occasional Pauses: Pausing occasionally allows the client to verbally reflect on certain areas they feel need improvements. This allows clients to physically see their faults and better learn from their mistakes.
Overall, the goal of client-guided feedback is for your client to recognize on their own what adjustments need to be made to their speech delivery, not for your client to feel defeated. As a consultant it is important to utilize compliments in addition to constructive comments to communicate what clients did well during their practice delivery.
Consultant-Guided Feedback
When giving feedback from the consultant's perspective, it is important to provide your client with examples of the suggestions you are making. For instance, if a student needs to add more information to round out their speaker credibility, give them specific examples of what details need to be added i.e., field of study, work experience, academic experience, etc.
Be mindful not to “do” your clients' work for them. It’s natural for consultants to want to help our clients as much as possible. This can be done in a productive way by not giving direct answers to specific questions a client has.
Example:
Prompt: At George Mason, we have a Deliberative Dialogue speech which targets issues on Mason’s campus that students can generate an outcome/solution for.
Client: “I am not sure what problems George Mason has on campus; do you as a fellow student have any ideas?”
❌Consultant Response #1: “Many students complain of dorm conditions, food insecurity, and associability for disabled student.”
✅ Consultant Response #2: “What issues have you faced on campus that you feel will make your campus experience much smoother?”
In the above example, there are two different ways to answer a client question. This first answer is discouraged as Consultant #1 gives the client no opportunity to generate their own solution and be creative in shedding light to other issues on campus that may not be commonly known. Consultant #2 allows client for creative development of an issue the client personally feels needs to be addressed by the school to better campus life.
Feedback should not be harsh or rude and should come from a place with true and sincere intentions. Refer to the previous discussion about tone and word choice. Be mindful of how you are delivering your feedback and do so in a clear and concise manner. Having taken a beginner communications course yourself, remember the nerves you may have had coming to a stranger for help and advice. It is the consultant’s responsibility to read the client and adjust the delivery of feedback accordingly depending on the circumstances. Expressing your constructive feedback from a place of wanting to be as helpful as possible is the main goal.
It is always a matter of not what you say, but how you say it! Below is a table with in-session examples that exemplify such importance and can be a great guide for you:
Post-Module Activity
Instructions:
Now that you have brushed up on providing helpful feedback as a consultant, let's learn-and practice some tips and tricks that can help you provide feedback tailored to your client! Do this activity with a partner. Read each of the following methods of providing feedback and discuss how you might execute that style of feedback in an appointment. Then, choose who will play the consultant and who will play the client for the next exercise! Spin the randomizer and practice what using that tactic may look like in an appointment! Switch roles, and spin again!
Compliment Sandwich: This is a very common way to provide both positive and constructive feedback to a client! Often this is done through providing a compliment on something done well followed by a piece of constructive feedback and then wrapping up with another compliment! This can help the client feel confident in what they are doing, therefore being more receptive to the feedback they are being given. It can be used in really detailed
Example: “Your intro is well done and includes everything you need! However, I think your transition into your first main point could use more elaboration. You did this very well in your second main point to third main point!”
Role-Switch: This method allows for the client to zoom out and reflect on their work more objectively! This is often done by creating a space for the client to give feedback to themselves as if they were the consultant. This one can be tricky, you want to make sure you don’t come off as condescending or that you are unprepared. Role-Switch can be really helpful in the client recognizing the positives or the consultant knowing where the client is in their progress!
Example: “If you were grading that speech, what are three things you would point out that you did well?”
Feedback 360: This is often used in office workplaces with managers and employees, but it can work well with clients as well! The point of this exercise is to have the client repeat back the feedback you gave them to make sure that they understand what they are being asked to do.
Example: “What three things can you look at after this appointment to help improve your speech?”
Feedback Ladder: This one can be used to help practice if a client might not be understanding what you mean by the feedback you are giving. In this exercise you start with the broadest phrasing of feedback and work your way up to the most direct.
Example: “The middle of the speech could use some work.”, “Your second main point needs more evidence”, “The second subpoint of your second main point needs more evidence from a reliable source”.