1. Feedback as a tool for professional development
Ella Tschopik
UW Madison
School of Education
Hello and welcome to this workshop on giving effective feedback. Today we’ll be discussing the value of feedback, learning how to give and receive feedback in a profession and useful manner, and discussing self assessment as well. My name is Ella Tschopik and I work for the School of Education at UW Madison where I manage computer labs and iOS devices in one of our decentralized IT units, just before that I worked for our centralized IT department also managing a computer lab. I’m originally from Madison, however, I did not attend the UW for college, I went to Alverno College a women’s college in Milwaukee with “no desks, no tests and no grades.” Instead, coursework is ability based, highly participative, group working and learning oriented and there’s a strong importance placed on feedback, from faculty, between peers and from yourself. This feedback is vital to how students at Alverno learn and grow and in coming into my IT positions at the UW I can see a strong use case for using feedback.

2. ArriviTarang in Mindful Presence - Tara Brach
-Will last 5 minutes
-Afterwards you will be handed a question sheet
ArriviTarang in Mindful Presence - Tara Brach
Arriving in Mindful Presence
Tara Brach
We’re going to start today with a guided meditation, the reason for this is to help draw us out of the bustle and excitement of the day and into this room, here together, in this community of learners. The meditation is a mindfulness meditation, which is one of many types of meditation. Mindfulness asks us to pay attention to our breath and our bodies here now in this moment. So please now for the next 5 minutes, put down your electronic devices, close your eyes and share this mindfulness practice together.

3. Please take a few moments to fill out your question sheet
Hand out sheets after meditation

4. I’m sure we’ve all heard “good job
I’m sure we’ve all heard “good job!” on something we’ve done before, it’s a nice feeling like “yes! I accomplished something” but at the same time it doesn’t give us any indication of what specifically we did that was “good.” We can’t improve on “good”

5. So What Can We Do Instead?
Feedback isn’t to make you feel good, it’s to make you feel valued. Feedback is not praise, the goal is to provide useful, actionable, concrete information tied to what you observed. Through honing our feedback skills, we can provide our co-workers with information they need to understand how they can do better or what they did well.

6. Giving Positive Feedback
Specific
Timely
Result oriented
Non trivial
Ask “can I give you some feedback?”

7. Giving Negative Feedback
Behavior based, not person based
Emotions under control
One on one
Specific, timely
Listen to their side openly
Create a plan, establish a follow up

8. In a moment, not yet… Read through scenarios
Find a partner and discuss
Join another pair and share
Full group discussion

9. Now onto receiving feedback...

10. How to receive (maybe not the best) feedback
Be a good listener
Ask for examples
Summarize back what you hear
Try to suspend judgement
Talk to others to get their opinion on the feedback
Try to control defensiveness
Let person know you appreciate the feedback
Tell them you will reflect on it and get back to them
If noticing stress response, take slow, deep breaths
Before clicking through, ask for stories of times they received negative feedback and did not respond well, what could they have done better? Include my own story about Adam and the podcast

11. Which brings us back to mindfulness
Let’s reflect on the mindfulness exercise we did
“Mindfulness is the psychological process of bringing one’s attention to the internal and external experiences occurring in the present moment” (Wikipedia)
What benefits do you think mindfulness brings and why can it help us with feedback?
How did the mindfulness experience make you feel? What does mindfulness mean to you after this experience?

12. Mindfulness, Feedback & Self Assessment
Increase Self Awareness
Barometer on “Internal Weather”
Notice and manage reactions, especially to bad feedback
Enhance self assessment skills
-What did I do well?
-What could I have done better?
talk about types of mindfulness, the science of mindfulness (8 weeks until brain structure changes), and why self assessment is important to feedback, ways to practice mindfulness

13. Questions?