A true story: by the time I’d reached the ninth grade, I had a well-earned reputation as a jerk, albeit one with good grades. I was a jerk to my friends, a jerk to my teachers, a jerk in class, a jerk in the cafeteria.
Grading student papers may be the college instructor’s least pleasant duty. Most of us carefully mark each page, noting problems, questioning assumptions, and offering additional information, many times on the final version of the essay when it is too late to make improvements. I have
When we return work to our students, we hope that they will study our feedback carefully and strive to improve their writing on the next assignment. Indeed, there are times when faculty may observe a student receiving a paper, looking for the grade, and then
“Response shows a complete lack of understanding.”
“Piece had no style or voice.”
“Position is incoherent.”
“Thesis is utterly incompetent.”
“Weak.”
“Ineffective.”
“Unsatisfactory.”
This is some of the discouraging feedback that we found in an interdisciplinary, cross-institutional survey of assessment rubrics that we collected from online
Thirty years later, I still remember the first time I went through a stack of student essays in preparation for paper conferences the next day. I was a first-year grad student in a writing program and completely responsible for the learning of the 22 first-year
Student feedback literacy—Is it meaningless academic jargon or destined to become a trendy handle? Neither is my hope for this moniker. While the term was originally defined as a student’s ability to read, interpret, and use written feedback, Carless and Boud (2018) enhance its definition
It doesn’t make any sense. You worked hard on that assignment, studied long hours for the test. You’re upset—texting complaints and spouting off to friends. Why not talk to me? Let me start with some reasons why you should.
I recently had an instructor ask whether the feedback he was about to provide to a student was too harsh. He said the student’s writing was a mess and that there was no way that the student would make it through their program without writing
It is widely assumed among faculty that students reward easy grades with good evaluations, which then becomes reason to dismiss student evaluations as unreliable. But a meta-analysis of various studies testing this hypothesis found that while some showed a minor correlation between grades and evaluations,
In August 2017, Inside Higher Ed featured an article describing a controversial “stress reduction policy” that was part of a professor’s course syllabus at the University of Georgia. The policy was intended to prevent the “profound consequences” of emotional reactions to
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A true story: by the time I’d reached the ninth grade, I had a well-earned reputation as a jerk, albeit one with good grades. I was a jerk to my friends, a jerk to my teachers, a jerk in class, a jerk in the cafeteria. I was probably a jerk when I slept, I was just that good at being a jerk. That year, though, I had a number of extremely good teachers, including one French instructor who saw enough in me that, on my final report card, he included the words: “A fine young man.”
Another true story: I spent my junior year of college overseas at a wonderful university in the UK. Halfway through the year, I received a paper back from one of my professors. Below the lowest grade I’d ever received was a comment that began: “This paper is not a success.”
The latter comment made an impression on me at the time.
But the former comment changed my life.
I’ve been an academic long enough to know that one of the prominent attributes of our particular breed is the ability—indeed, even the compulsion—to critique. No surprise here. Academics are, if nothing else, critical thinkers: we don’t just encounter the world, we question it, seeking to make sense of it. Why does X happen? How do we reconcile Y with Z? Can we make R more effective?
All of which is good, of course. Or can be, in the right context. What happens, though, when we turn that critical eye on our students? Vicki Spandel and Rick Stiggins were telling us as far back as 1990, and it’s not good. When faced with critiques on their writing as mild as “Be more specific,” students respond negatively: “You be more specific.” When comments shifted into more negative territory—“Try harder!”—student responses bordered on apoplectic. “Baloney! You don’t know how hard I tried” is one example. “You’re a stupid jerk” is another (quoted in Bean, 2011, pp. 318–319).
Analyzing these responses, John Bean uses neuroscientist James Zull to point to the amygdala—that part of the brain we tend to associate with fight, flight, or freeze—to explain these responses: “Fear, anxiety, or anger block meaningful learning” (Bean, 2011, p. 320). In short, when we critique our students, they can get defensive. When they get defensive, learning is less likely to happen.
But we can’t help ourselves. Sometimes we’re critical—and even overly critical—because we’re tired. Sometimes because, damn it, this is the sixth paper in a row that made this mistake! Or the sixth exam. Or the sixth presentation. Or the 26th. Teaching can be frustrating and exhausting. And when we’re tired, our filters turn off. When our filters turn off, we start to “Awk” and “No!” and “Try harder!” all over the page.
There’s a lot going on here, of course. I’m not a neuroscientist (and I’ve never played one on TV), but even I know that emotionally charged moments stay with us for a long time—and that our capacity for negative bias causes us to dwell on unpleasant experiences for a longer time. I’m also aware that context and assumptions can play a role in the outsized responses students might have to our comments. Trained by any number of negative schooling experiences, many of them may come into higher ed assuming an adversarial relationship with their professors.
With all this in mind, I’d like to propose an interesting experiment: next time you’re responding to a paper (or an oral presentation, or an academic poster) and jotting ideas to help students get better, include only positive comments.
I know, I know, this sounds impossible. But it’s really not. Yes, there will be errors or “areas for improvement” in every student artifact. I’m not suggesting we pretend they’re not there. Instead, what I’m suggesting is that we only address them by speaking about the positive aspects of the work:
This idea comes from the work of Ylvisaker and Feeney (1998), who refer to it as “errorless learning.” At the risk of oversimplifying extremely complex research, my understanding of the logic is as follows: any time we emphasize a mistake in student learning (or student writing, or student work generally), we run the risk of strengthening the neuronal networks upon which that error is based. Indeed, the more attention we pay an error, the more that neuronal network fires. The more that network fires, the stronger it becomes and the more easily the erroneous idea or information or habit of mind is recalled.
By focusing purely on the positive, the unintended consequence of strengthening the network associated with the incorrect information or unproductive practice is avoided—or at least diminished. What’s more, you’ll notice that nearly all the comments listed above have a forward, future-leaning quality to them: How might you? How could you? How would you? We already know that, unless we’re requiring revisions of their papers, generally only the best students carry our comments forward to their later work (Bean, 2011). While the forward-looking nature of these comments won’t necessarily resolve that, certainly tapping into the portions of the frontal lobe involved in planning can’t hurt.
“Can’t hurt”? That’s a sketchy way to conclude an essay on university teaching. But I’m sticking with it. Because in 1981, a French teacher named Mr. Wakeman showed me a self I didn’t realize I was capable of. And I’ve never been the same since.
Bean, J. (2011). Engaging ideas: The professor’s guide to integrating writing, critical thinking, and active learning in the classroom. Jossey-Bass.
Spandel, V., & Stiggins, R. J. Creating writers: Linking assessment and writing instruction. Longman, 1990.
Paul Hanstedt, PhD, is the founding director of the Harte Center for Teaching and Learning at Washington and Lee University and the author of General Education Essentials: A Guide for College Faculty (about to come out in a second edition) and Creating Wicked Students: Designing Courses for a Complex World.
