Feedback Week 3

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Praise, Not Presence: Hot to Cultivate a Healthy Relationship with Achievement by Maria Popova is an article describing the dangers of too much praise. She cites Stephen Grosz, professor at the University College London, who takes inspiration from Carol Dweck. We watched her videos earlier in the course. Popova summarizes their research by explaining that praising a child can actually lower one’s self confidence and suffocate their will to try. If a child has gotten praise such as “you’re so clever”, they may not feel the need to think any further, because they have already done well. If they are told that their artwork is “the best”, why feel the need to create a new piece of art if their work is already so good? Or, they may feel like they could never hope to create something as good as their “best” work, and so they don’t try. Minimizing the amount of praise that we give children will make the times that they do receive praise more meaningful. Instead of constantly reassuring children with words, Popova suggests encouraging them with presence, something that no child can thrive without. You can access Popova’s article here: link.

The second article that I read was Be a Mirror: Give Readers Feedback that Fosters a Growth Mindset by Gravity Goldberg. Goldberg also cites the work of Carol Dweck and described the difference between fixed and growth mindsets. A fixed mindset is when a child already has a certain perception of their abilities and certain expectations for themselves. If they already “know” how to do something, then they will not try harder. Or, if they believe that a certain task is simply out of their reach, they give up before they even begin. The “mirror” concept entails that someone giving feedback does so without judgement, simply reflecting what they have observed as it is. There are five important steps for acting as this mirror: be specific, focus on what is happening rather than what is not happening, focus on the student’s process, make sure the feedback is applicable to other work of the student’s, and avoid giving advice starting with first person pronouns. The last rule makes the feedback less tainted with personal preference, and promotes the intention that the student is capable of looking at their work from an unfiltered lens. You can access Goldberg’s article here: link