AF Online Training: On Feedback

(Thought-Random)

        A personal experience that has remained in my memory through the years is a post-conference with my Department Head (APM?) during my earlier years of teaching. After a class of mine wherein she came and observed, she gave me her feedback.  She used the so-called Oreo approach: something positive, information, something positive. For a start, she told me it was an impressive performance I did and that my students must have learned a lot from me, and then ended with more encouraging praise words.  But significant for me was the information part because she thought I was too eager to put in too much in that one lesson like I was putting all I knew.  And I should not because it made my presentation confusing and perhaps even an overloading to the students. She went on to say I could have divided that one lesson in two or three to have it more interesting and easier for them to internalize. Somehow, all these, in essence,  stuck in my mind; - not only what she said but  more specially that what she said was learning to me.

        In like manner, I'd say feedback in our online courses spell not only for our students growth and direction and a confidence booster, but also for myself: - my own professional growth, my enhanced communicative skills, my sense of achievement at seeing progress.  My students would be priority, of course. I would not only give them information of their mistakes positively... I should also try to help them know how to improve on these mistakes if only to encourage their self-efficacy. As I had come across somewhere, "feedback would become the instruction that is missing in the course". But  I would remember as well  that if I established good interpersonal communication with my students, like show interest in their personal struggles, this could be a link to their satisfaction in the course and thus increase their motivation for successful learning.