Week 2 Reflection

Although my thinking takes place daily, my writing seems to occur on a less frequent basis.  Still, some feedback is better than none right - or I guess that depends. Last week I was mostly thinking about feedback in terms of my senior project classes.  They just completed two assignments, each for which I gave very different styles of feedback. The first assignment, was their letter of intent proposing what they intend to do for the senior project.  This letter is personally reviewed and edited by me, and then goes on to be reviewed by myself and two other "board members." Both stages of progress, require very specific feedback,  or else it's a lose-lose situation: the student does it get their project approved, and the teacher doesn't get a carefully articulated idea for a project proposal.  In some cases, when reviewing the letters of the board, it was obvious that my first round of feedback for the students ("What would it look like if...? or "Have you considered…?") had been well received and aided the student in progressing and communicating their idea. In other cases, it seemed my feedback was not clear or did not offer an actionable enough plan for the student to implement in their letter without further discussion. In these cases, the other board members and I had to be especially direct and careful in our suggestions to the students for revision, since this would be their primary source of feedback to lean on in modifying their project to get the idea passed.

Ironically the other type of feedback I found myself giving senior project students this week was was the non-procedural slash & dash red pen type - on the resumes.  Well I'm editing these important documents for them, I feel as if I'm doing them a big favor that they should appreciate and take full advantage of. Thanks to this class, I also found myself questioning the nature of my feedback and the efficiency of my time span giving students specific technical commandsto guide them in the procedure of revising their resumes.