Peak Performer Characteristics

In order to improve our own practice as a teacher, lesson planner and a professional in a teaching organisation working with others, it is important that we take account of feedback from various sources and evaluate our own performance on a regular basis. As Wilson, suggests:

In my point of view feedback is an essential tool for learners’ progress. If the student is not assessing their work then they are not learning and given feedback are vital to ensure best practice is maintained and the learners are achieving to their full potential.

Feedback both positive and negative is important for personal development as it helps us to become more aware of what we do and how we do it. Both in good and bad ways, this feedback can then be used to self-develop and improve our practice.

Feedback is a vital part of the assessment process as it gives the assessor an idea of if the learner has met the criteria set and if they haven’t, what action is needed to achieve the criteria.

Many people have significant difficulty in accepting criticism in any form, even where it is intended to be supportive and constructive. If we are aware that you are likely to have difficulty accepting criticism, we should try to prepare ourselves to view feedback from any source as precious and useful information that can add to our ability to reflect effectively on our work. This is not easy, but it is essential.

Feedback is perceived as more valid and objective, leading to acceptance of results and actions required (Michael Armstrong 2009:646).This implies

If the feedback is questionable then it becomes useless because it is not trusted. Positive and negative feedback will be more readily accepted if it is kept even, if it is more of one then it may not be received well by the learner for reasons that become obvious within the learner’s behavior or work.

It is always my aim to ensure that feedback is timely and given in a constructive and sensitive manner; and my approach can sometimes be influenced by what I have learned during initial assessment; and as I develop relationships with the learner. I have recently made efforts to encourage my learners to reflect and to self-assess their performance. I feel that this helps to pave the way for me to feedback to the individual and to reduce the risk of de-motivating them.

This can show vocabulary words that they have learned, concepts they have mastered, or subjects that they have studied. The teacher can refer back to these lists regularly to reinforce new concepts and build on old ideas. Specific feedback can be integrated into classroom discussions or on student papers, explaining problems or elaborating further on an idea that the student has learned. Immediate feedback can be critical because it can alter the course of the student’s thinking before they become more confused. The teacher who is observant can correct misinformation or misconceptions quickly to avoid further problems in the student’s learning process. This can be a result of classroom discussions, question and answer sessions, and call and response methods. All forms of feedback have benefits and when used together can create a cohesive picture of the student’s abilities and success. Instructional feedback for students can have several benefits ranging from motivating the student to achieve more to helping them develop more refined metacognition and also possibly giving the student a sense of control over their own educational success (Malley, 1994).

2. GIVING FEEDBACK = Verbal feedback, Written Feedback.{Try to be positive, Don’t be negative candidates find this demoralising}

All this is in line with the LLUK Standard Domain E "The role of feedback in effective evaluation and improvement of own assessment skills."

In their article “Teaching the Art and Craft of giving and receiving feedback, Harms and Roebuck suggest that in every work environment, the process of giving and receiving feedback is very vital in addressing the performance of employees and managers. They claimed from their research that in view of the fact that there is no stipulated guideline in proving feedback, the use of a qualitative and quantitative form of feedback mechanism should be incorporated in daily learning by students. Harms and Roebuck suggest that emphasis should be placed on ensuring that feedback is a two-way communication (Krug, 1998, cited in Harms and Roebuck,

Therefore, feedback is designed to provide useful information to participants to help develop and improve them as leaders. It should not be used to hurt participants or make them feel bad; however, feedback is needed for improvements and coaching in order to move them to the next level. According to Hughes, Ginnett, & Curphy (2015) “The skill of giving constructive feedback, however, inherently involves actively giving feedback to some else. Getting helpful feedback is essential to a subordinate’s performance and development. Without feedback, a subordinate will not be able to tell whether she’s doing a good job or whether her abrasiveness is turning people off and hurting her chances for promotion (p.444).”

Accurate external feedback is essential to facilitate improvement in performance (Sargeant at al 2010). To achieve the best results not only feedback needs to be provided in a right way but also a person accepting the feedback needs to be receptive to it. Although I always maintained professional while receiving feedback and often actively sought feedback myself, I found challenging at a times to handle negative feedback.

My friend Ling asked me to help her with her English pronunciation at the beginning of this year. I tutored her for two weeks and we did not have very official tutoring time; so mostly, we communicated in English and I corrected her whenever I spotted a mistake. She is a Chinese girl who comes from Chengdu, and she has problems producing some of the sounds. For example, she always pronounces “six” as “sex”, which ultimately made her come to me since it kept embarrassing her. I first taught her some basic pronouncing rules, and then we began the “spotting then correcting” session. After reading Wiggins’ (2012) article about feedback, I think the way that I taught my friend was to have her learn from the feedback. For example, one day when we were in Mexico City, we were talking about how to make her pronunciation better.