Feedback Examples

As often as I could, I intentionally scheduled sessions so that an oral debriefing was able to occur immediately following the session. After sessions during the oral debriefing time, I always began the discussion with an open ended question such as "How did it go?" or "How are you feeling?" This allowed the student an opportunity to express their thoughts on how the session went and lead the discussion. I responded to the student reflection of the session by validating their reflection and offering specific feedback through examples. Next I began giving some of my feedback through asking questions, giving examples "I noticed you" or "I saw you do this," and either praising or offering an alternative, "When that happens next time do this."

I asked for understanding several times during these conversations, "Is this making sense?" If it wasn't making sense, I would provide a different explanation, a model, an offer to send a resource along with written feedback, or another time for us to visit about it.

Example

An example of an impactful oral debriefing occurred after a teletherapy session. During this session, two graduate student clinicians were providing support to a parent who was in the home encouraging their child to use an eye-gaze AAC system. Parent coaching was new to both students. After the session, when I began the conversation with an open-ended question, my students asked me, "How do we tell a parent what they need to be doing at home every day with AAC?" This question led to a conversation about partnering with parents, understanding parent priorities and capacities, praising successes for both parent and child through specific feedback, and highlighting progress through specific examples. Through this conversation, the students perspectives shifted from "How do I tell a parent what to do?" to "How do I partner with a family to prioritize their needs and capitalize on their skills?" In a Simucase debriefing later, one of these students referenced this conversation and shared this knowledge with peers in a conversation about family partnership.

I provided in-situ feedback in some circumstances in order to give timely feedback that could be applied in that session. Prior to stepping into a session to provide feedback or model a teaching strategy, I explained to my students in what situations I might step in to give feedback including 1) to model a teaching strategy, 2) to assist with a technology problem, 3) to assist with environmental set up, or 4) to provide a material I think may be helpful. I took the time to explain this to clinicians so they would hopefully feel more comfortable with me stepping into the therapy room and to foster a collaborative learning environment. Additionally, if I gave in-situ feedback during a session, I debriefed about why I stepped in during the post session debrief. This was an important component, because the debrief allowed for me to ensure that I was able to provide specific information about why I stepped in to suggest that change.

Below is an example of the a written debriefing I provided after I provided in-situ feedback within a session. The feedback provided was for session management in a telepractice session. I had either turned on my camera and microphone or sent the clinician a direct message via the chat feature on Zoom to prompt the clinician to move on to the next activity.

"Session management-When I prompted you in the session to move on from the reading activity because you were losing her [the client], you agreed. I’m glad that you identified that. Remember though that you are driving the session. If you feel your client is not benefiting from an activity because they are losing interest, you can change the activity."

In this example, I first explain why I provided the prompt (green). Then I acknowledged that her response in the session (blue). I provided praise for her skills in identifying that her client was loosing interest in the current activity (red). And finally, offered a reflection and clarification of what to do next time (purple).

As a clinical supervisor, I participated in midterm and final evaluations of each of the students I provided supervision for. These evaluations were done in collaboration with my supervisors. These evaluations asked us to rate students on a 1-5 scale (1 being not evident, and 5 being consistently observed) for different clinical skills. We then used open text boxes to descriptively identify strengths and areas for continued development for each student. The descriptions in these boxes were brief, and we elaborated on the topics during the conference time with the students. During midterm and final conferences, I held conversations with students about what we observed, went over the evaluation form in detail, asked if there would be anything else they would add, and reflected their thoughts in the evaluation form.

Brookhart, S. M. (2011). Effective feedback should be adjusted depending on the needs of the learner. The Educational Digest, 76(9), 5.

Hattie, J., & Timperley, H. (2007). The Power of Feedback. Review of Educational Research, 77(1), 81–112. https://doi.org/10.3102/003465430298487