Feedback Discussions Overview

You will request and give feedback on projects in informal class discussions, which will take place in Piazza. The goal of these discussions is learn how to give and take advice that will improve your writing.

The feedback that you give one another should be formative feedback (rather than summative feedback). Let’s begin with some definitions:

Formative Feedback:

  • Focuses on comments that help form and improve the project.
  • Provides advice on how to proceed.
  • Points out where the reader is lost or has questions.
  • Avoids any judgment of quality.

Summative Feedback:

  • Focuses on summary comments and judgments that relate to the quality of the finished product.

Essentially, you won’t make judgments of quality; you will focus on comments that help one another strengthen your projects by giving detailed and constructive feedback. One widely-used analogy explains the difference between these two kinds of feedback this way:

Formative Assessment
         
A chef is using formative assessment when she tastes a dish while cooking to decide if she needs to add anything.

She is considering how she can improve the dish.

Summative Assessment
         
Diners are using summative assessment when they taste the finished dishes and share their comments.

They are judging the final quality of the dish.

How the Feedback Process Works

Most of you have probably had the experience of doing peer review in a class—and getting very little useful information back to improve your project. You might have gotten feedback such as “Looks good. Be sure to spell check. I noticed some typos,” or “The ideas are great, but you need to make it look better.” The whole activity may have seemed like busywork to you.

Feedback in this course doesn’t work that way. Instead you choose something specific that you need help with and ask your classmates for advice. Here are some example scenarios:

  • You want to know how well the introduction to your report entices your audience to read further.
  • You wonder if the emphasis strategies you have used adequately helps the reader find the most important information.
  • You need help deciding on headings for your document. You have some ideas, but you’d like a second opinion.

You post the passage from your document, and explain the kind of feedback that you want. Your classmates will read and respond. Meanwhile, you should read the passages others have posted and respond to their questions.

When I review your participation in these discussions, I look for details that demonstrate you are asking for specific feedback on passages from your own work and that you are providing formative feedback to others on their work. I will remain largely hands-off in these discussions. There are no “right” answers to feedback questions, so I will not be providing any final judgments. Instead, you, as the author of the project have to decide the best action to take.