Feedback Strategies: Feed-forward and Praise vs. Feedback

Feedback vs Feed-forward.
Source: Linkedin

For this assignment I read Try Feedforward Instead of Feedback by Marshall Goldsmith and The Difference Between Praise and Feedback by Anya Kamenetz. Both articles were good, and had excellent information about the two subjects. I really like the idea of feedforward. I would much rather listen to what I should do to improve in the future insteading of dwelling on what I did wrong in the past. I can see why this concept has such positive reviews. Like the article by Kamenetz stated, praise is a touchy subject. Her article was more geared toward parents, but what I got out of the article is to praise the process instead of the accomplishment. This is really useful for feedback because you can focus on what was done right, praise the person for it, but then you can also give the feedback stating the problem but it set a positive tone in the beginning, so the feedback is more likely to be taken in a positive manner. 
Throughout my life I have always struggled to give feedback. I never want to hurt anyone's feeling or tell them something that is completely wrong. Last semester really helped me in the feedback department, but I also did not feel like I had to give much as everything was really good. I like both of the strategies that I learned from the articles. Feedback is meant to better a person and help them learn what not to do in the future. My main goal is to give positive, helpful feedback that will help the person when writing. I am not sure what strategy I will use yet, but I really like the idea of feedforward.

Feedback Thoughts

14 Signs Your Perfectionism Has Gotten Out Of Control by Caroline Gregoire, was the first article I read. I have always known I was a perfectionist, but this just went to further confirm what I already knew. I really liked how the article was related and did a really good job of writing down everything a perfectionist feels. As stated, I do have difficult with criticism. It is not that I do not like, or do not want it, but when given criticism I feel like I have failed and that what I did was not right. I am sure everyone who is a perfectionist has faced this. I have gotten over my struggle with criticism and feedback and now openly accept it. I know I am human, so I will make mistakes, and I have realized that I can further learn from my mistakes, which gave me a new outlook on feedback and criticism. I now use it as a source of learning.

The second article I read was Recalibrating the Perfectionist Mind by Dr. Jay-Lee Nair. I really liked this article. It gave a lot of coping strategies and a some useful tips on how to beat that negative mentality that being a perfectionist gives you. My favorite part was giving yourself a list of positive things about you before an exam or somewhere you have to perform. This makes perfect sense. Make yourself feel good about something before you do it, and you are more likely to perform better. Overall, feedback has been something I have struggled with in the past, but last semester, I felt the feedback went very well. Everyone was always very nice and helpful and I appreciated that. This semester, I am working on being more confident when giving others feedback. Something I personally struggled with was giving other's feedback and worrying that I was wrong,but I plan to take a new mindset into feedback this semester.

The most useful feedback I have received is when the feedback is in depth and gives suggestion about what I should do differently versus just stating that I need to fix it. This goes in hand with the worst feedback I have received, which was just a paper showing my errors, with no suggestion on how to fix them. When it comes to feedback in learning tasks, I like to be shown what I am doing wrong and how I can fix it, so it is very similar to on paper.

Funny feedback meme. Source: Create Meme