FEEDBACK

Our weekly peer feedback groups provided us with opportunities to give and receive feedback, an important professional skill in the field of instructional design.

The design process is inherently collaborative, and as a result, feedback is inevitable and integral to achieving project objectives and requirements. Growth is an expectation for everyone, whether in an academic or professional setting. Through feedback, individuals are better equipped to develop skills needed to succeed. EDCI 531 allowed us to experience this process to not only improve our lessons, but to simulate the real-world professional context that we all will one day encounter. Each week we worked on a mini-lesson that applied a specific learning theory. We would post our descriptions to our feedback group where classmates would offer guiding questions or concrete ideas to help improve designs. For example, for one of my cognitivism lessons, a classmate posed the question, “What problems do you anticipate they will need to solve? What heuristics would you use with them?” In my final lesson, I incorporated his feedback and created the heuristic POW, which was three questions to help groups problem-solve through hurdles that hinder their ability to meet their exercise goals. 

As an educator, I have experience giving and receiving feedback: my administrators and department chairs regularly observe me for informal and formal evaluations. I am also the grade-level lead teacher, so I visit my team of teachers to provide them with feedback that will help improve their practice. However, the lessons that I designed for EDCI 531 were novel to me because they are intended for contexts outside of the traditional classroom, an area with which I am unfamiliar. This made the feedback process even more useful because I have room to grow. While it was nerve-wracking at times since I was taking risks and exploring uncharted territory, it was encouraging to get both praise and constructive feedback, which helps increase my self-efficacy as I embark on different approaches to learning design aside from the K-12 classroom. 

Going forward, I will not be afraid to identify specific problem areas where I could use help smoothing out my ideas. This will help the people providing feedback focus on the areas that need the most guidance. Communication is the foundation of collaboration, and participating in feedback groups is the basis of professional development.