The Feedback Loop

Success in the real world depends on a person's ability to iterate. to understand the definition of success on a task to seek feedback early and often to use that feedback to revise and refine until successful As teachers, its our job to scaffold this process, with developmentally-appropriate differentiation, until our students can fly solo. As I sit here writing this, my  SO  Dan is at his desk  red-lining  a building diagram for a warehouse in Canada. When he's done, the diagram will go back to his team of engineers where they will respond to Dan's feedback with a better design. They'll repeat this process until both building code and client requirements have been met. To do this work, which requires an iteration cycle that can last over a year or more, Dan has to understand building code and client needs, seek feedback from other engineers and the client, and use that feedback to revise and refine until the design is ready for implementation. ​Dan wasn'...

Dear teachers, I’ve been chatting with some amazing educators from the South and Midwest this week. It’s part of our effort to spread the word about the Flash + Floop fall pilot . By amazing, I really mean amazing, like a veteran elementary teacher who is the model ELA instructor for her district, and a veteran college counselor, with a terrific success rate, who coaches seniors on their college essays. First, I ask, “What words come to mind when you think of your students turning in work that’s ready for your feedback?” Here are a few responses: “Time consuming.” “Not timely enough for the kids to revise.” “I get pretty exhausted.” “I procrastinate immediately.” “Fourteen hundred papers coming at me this fall.” “Kids don’t focus much on comments that are two weeks old.” “Nights and weekends.” “Uuughh.” In short, when it comes to giving feedback, even proven and successful teachers with great paper systems in place are at risk of burnout, and feel there just ...

What’s the difference between a goal that’s just written on paper and a goal you actually achieve? Whether you’re thinking about your personal goals for the next school year, or how to help your students write goals, using a framework helps define goals to make them more attainable. You’ve probably heard of SMART goals , so today I’ll talk about WOOP goals. What’s WOOP? WOOP is a goal-setting framework that stands for Wish, Outcome, Obstacle, and Plan . While most goal-setting includes only positive visualization of the goal, WOOP encourages mental contrasting between the Outcome (desired future) and Obstacle (present reality). With mental contrasting, people make a stronger connection between their future and reality. Instead of avoiding or not thinking about their obstacles, they realize that they need to overcome their current reality in order to achieve their goal. If you’re interested in using WOOP, I highly recommend you check out the Character Lab’s resources . They...