Effective feedback is crucial to learning

Our next major principle of experiential learning is an effective feedback is crucial to learning. Susan Ambrose in her book, “How Learning Works”, provided the following quote “Goal-directed practice coupled with targeted feedback are critical to learning.” This is very true. A preceptor has to focus heavily on the type of feedback and the way the feedback is given to students. Doug Lemov in his book, “Practice Perfect”, provided the following quote “Practice doesn’t make perfect. Practice makes permanent.” The idea here is that simply making sure that students are practicing what we want them to learn. It’s not enough. We have to also make sure that they’re practicing in the right way.

In basketball, if a player is using poor technique to dribble the ball, past the ball or shoot the ball into the basket. It’s up to the coach to identify the problem with their technique and modify it. So that they will be practicing things the right way. This is equally as important in a rotation. We can’t mistake activity for achievement or business productivity. The student is working hard and very active and in meeting the demands of the rotation. That effort is not gonna pay dividends, unless the effort is geared toward doing things the right way.

So the preceptor has to be constantly identifying how well the student is performing and providing corrective feedback, so that they’re practicing the things that we want them to practice the right way. Our fifth guaranteed preceptor technique is real-time feedback. What I mean by this is the feedback needs to be given as soon as possible after the event that the feedback relates to. Preferably right away, but certainly during the same day. Feedback should be given constantly, immediately where possible and whenever it’s warranted. So verbal feedback should be abundant. During basketball practice, coaches constantly monitoring what the players are doing during practice and providing feedback to them. It’s whether they are doing things the right way or the wrong way.

And if they’re doing it the wrong way, it will provide additional feedback to indicate how they need to change what they’re doing. But this type of immediate feedback is critically important. If there’s a delay in the feedback of a GPS system when you’re driving your car, it’s not gonna help you very much. The feedback is effective because it’s instantaneous. So the closer for a preceptor can be to providing instantaneous feedback to students, the better. The next guaranteed preceptor technique is to give pinpoint feedback. And we not only have to give the feedback right away, as quickly as possible. We have to make sure that the feedback communicates to the students exactly what it is we want to communicate to them.

That means it has to be specific. We have to explain exactly what the feedback relates to with no ambiguity. If the student is not performing well, we don’t want to simply tell them that they need to do better when they’re on patient rounds or when they’re talking to the medical staff. We need to tell them what it is they need to do. Perhaps they need to speak up more. They’re reluctant to contribute to a conversation. So we will provide feedback specifically to that effect. You need to speak up more on rounds if you have something to contribute. Don’t just remain silent. Speak up! Whatever it is, you need to tell the student exactly what it is they need to do.

A good GPS system doesn’t just say you’re off course. You need to get back on course. It provides specific information as to where we are and what we need to do to get back on course. So it’s very important to be specific and concise whether we’re giving positive feedback or corrective feedback. Either way, if we’re giving positive feedback, we want to make sure the student understands exactly why we’re giving them positive feedback. To simply say, “Hey! You did a good job on rounds today.” It’s nice, but it’s not gonna have as much impact on the student. As if we were to say, “The way you communicated with the medical staff on rounds was very effective.

You were assertive and very clear in the way you communicated your concerns to them.” That’s the type of feedback that can reinforce what the student is doing or provide correction if that needs to be the case. Our next guaranteed preceptor technique is to provide net positive feedback. And what we mean here is to be able whether we’re giving corrective feedback or complementary feedback is to make sure that the net result is positive. John Wooden was the most outstanding basketball coaches of all time. Won ten national championships in the period of twelve years from 1962 to 1974 when he was at UCLA. One of the greatest of all time. So the coaches is someone who can give correction without resentment.

And that was one of the things that he was noted for. he was very strict and practice and very well organized practices. And he constantly evaluating how well his players were doing in practice. And he would stop and give them feedback very frequently to make sure that they were perfecting those fundamental technique that made them such effective players and such winning teams. The net feedback should be positive. So even when we have to give corrective feedback, we want to make sure that we’re giving more positive feedback and correct feedback. We also want to make sure that we’re acknowledging effort. Certainly, we are reserving praise for good achieved.

We wanna be praising effort and give the students the false impression that effort is the only thing more concerned about. What’s important is achieving the learning outcomes. And so, actually praising their performance should be reserved for a demonstration of performance that lead to the achievement of outcomes. And it’s good to acknowledge the fact that they’re working hard as well. Lastly, we need to describe observations of behaviours, rather than forming value judgments or making reference to personal traits. When there’s a need to provide corrective feedback to students. We wanna make sure that they don’t perceive that we’re being personal or that we’re judging them from a personal perspective.

But more you can focus on the behavior that you want to be correct, the less likelihood that student will take that feedback personally.