Durable Skills Series Post 3: The Importance of Receiving and Giving Feedback for Effective Teamwork (1)

Introduction

Effective teamwork is crucial for achieving success on collaborative projects that have shared goals and accountabilities. Productive and effective teamwork relies on open communication and constructive feedback to improve performance and achieve these shared goals. It isn’t a stretch to say that, as a team member, at any given time, one is either receiving or giving feedback, consciously–or unconsciously 😳 –so having skills in feedbacking^[1] is critical in team environments^[2].

But, although a very important set of skills, there aren’t always times in academic settings to intentionally introduce, develop, and practice these skills–with feedback. Dawn included the intentional practice of receiving and giving feedback into her lab-based course. And learners received feedback (via a marking rubric) from Dawn on the feedback they provided to their colleagues.

Dawn's Class Example

Dawn has always included a team-based research project (🎉) in her bench science lab course. With the sudden shift to online courses in 2020, Dawn looked for innovative ways to ensure her students could engage and collaborate effectively in a virtual setting without relying on the natural connections that formed around the lab bench. To this end, Dawn introduced a feedback component into the team-based research project, emphasizing the importance of giving and receiving feedback among learners from different teams. Although learners had the opportunity to practice skills related to receiving and giving feedback,^[3] the overall goal was to build strong research projects. This clear, strong, and ultimately practical “why” was fundamental to the success and utility of the adventure. The primary purpose of the peer feedback was to improve the final projects. The adjacent benefit was that learners practiced feedbacking skills.

Logistics

Learners had one class dedicated on how to give–and receive–feedback. Dawn then randomly paired each student with a student from another team. After reviewing each other’s research projects, learners met with their partners during class time and provided face-to-face verbal feedback–on three separate occasions. Learners had a template to record the feedback they received from their partner. Then learners explained (to Dawn in written form) how they addressed the feedback either by incorporating it or justifying why they didn’t incorporate it as part of the final submission.

Collectively, each research team received feedback from team members from other teams on three separate occasions at different points in the research project. For example, if there were 4 people on a team^[4], they collectively received feedback and fresh perspectives from 4 people from other teams three times and could apply this to their developing project. Wow! ⭐ That is powerful! Not only did the projects benefit from this iterative process, but learners had the opportunity to improve their feedbacking skills over the course of the three practice times! ⭐⭐⭐

Key points:

• Through a brief presentation by a visiting guest^[5], class discussion, and follow-up resources, learners had guidance and information on how to provide and receive feedback.
• Learners had the same peer partners from other research teams for all three feedback conversations.
• The feedback was not The feedback conversations were face-to-face and in real time.^[6] There was a high level of accountability.
• In the real time, face-to-face^[7] conversations, those receiving feedback had the opportunity to ask clarifying questions. There was no lag time–which there can often be with written feedback.
• Learners had clear instructions and a structured format for providing feedback and for recording the verbal feedback that was received.
• Learners had the autonomy to select the feedback they would incorporate and, additionally, learners provided a rationale for feedback they chose not to act on.
• The feedback that was provided was assessed by the instructor.
• Feedback was strengths–based and curiosity driven.
• Teams could decide what feedback was relevant for them.
• There was time to make adjustments before the final evaluation which seemed to lead to higher-quality outcomes.

Benefits

Dawn noticed several positive outcomes resulting from the including the feedback process in the team-based research project:

1. The end products of the team-based research projects were notably stronger after undergoing the iterative review process.(ka-ching!!)
2. Marking was much faster and more gratifying.^[8]
3. The feedback conversations encouraged more connection and sharing of experiences within the class. By engaging in face-to-face discussions, even in a virtual setting, students felt a greater sense of community and collaboration. The feedback component was greatly appreciated by the learners thus reinforcing the value of this practice.^[9]
4. From the learner feedback gathered at the end of the course, it became apparent that students not only gained an appreciation for the importance of receiving and giving feedback to strengthen their research projects, but also gained additional insights and skills that they could use in everyday life regarding the sharing of feedback.^[10]
5. Class attendance went to 100%--in an online course during a pandemic without using an attendance or participation grade.
6. This approach seemed to foster a sense of community within the class and enhanced the overall quality of the end products. It seemed that this activity instilled a sense of responsibility and accountability to one another in a different way from what Dawn had observed in other courses she had taught. Attending the class was useful and meaningful and learners were relying on (1) one another, (2) their research team members and (3) their peer feedback partners as well as (4) the instructor.^[11]
7. Students reported that they met and interacted with more people in this class than in other online classes during this time.
8. The act of providing feedback to another team may prompt teams to adopt a more objective perspective on their own work. Simply by seeing the work of others^[12] (always enlightening) and then having the responsibility of providing useful feedback, teams also have something to compare their own work to and can reflect on their performance and identify areas for improvement.
9. In comparison to research teams that don’t have the same opportunity to receive and give feedback, receiving multiple perspectives on a team’s project from peers at various points during development seemed to help teams address obstacles and refine their projects.
10. The face-to-face nature of sharing feedback through (virtual) conversation and with “cameras on” seemed to enhance the sense of community within the class. This suggests that open communication and direct interaction contributes to stronger team and inter-team dynamics, a more cohesive and engaging working environment, and, ultimately, more sophisticated final products.

In conclusion…

The intentional, supported addition of structured “feedbacking” was a game-changer in terms of (1) strengthening the final projects, (2) building a sense of community and accountability within the class, and (3) practicing feedbacking skills. Dawn feels that providing the time to practice receiving and giving feedback for a real purpose–for improving a real project–was instrumental to the success of this course and the research projects.

Conduct your own experiment

If you want to replicate this feedbacking experiment in your own class, please contact Dawn for the specific specifics i.e., her lesson plan, materials, feedback forms, the instructions for the assignment, assessment criteria, etc. We believe that this easy-to-integrate approach is transferable to all classes that include a team^[13] project and can be adapted for classes that have individual projects.

If you want to know more about the team-based research approach used in this class, we invite you to explore the blog post series From Student to Researcher (in one term!)

^[1] Feedbacking is not, unfortunately, a recognized Scrabble word nor is it anyone’s favorite word-yet–but it is the present participle of feedback according to yourdictionary.com, and it is not autocorrected. For our purposes we are using it to refer to the actions involved in both receiving and giving feedback.

^[2] Team assignments, collaborative and team-based research, design projects, workplace environments, healthcare, etc.

^[3] How “lucky" was that!? 😉

^[4] Four team members seemed to work well.

^[5] Sheryl 😅

^[6] Much like what would happen in a “real” situation in an in-person work environment.

^[7] Virtually speaking (online, cameras on)

^[8] Teams dug in and went above and beyond!

^[9] It might also be that the stories they shared about the experience were positive and helped to build a positive culture of feedback in Dawn’s course–this is Sheryl theorizing 😉 We don’t have data YET on this.

^[10] WHAT!? A skill set that can also be used with family and friends?! Yup. Dawn received comments from learners about using these DURABLE skills in their personal lives as well as in their academic work. 🎉

^[11] In a more traditional academic setting, the learner might only have conversations and receive feedback about their work from the instructor (or their designate) and often that “feedback” might be only in the form of a mark or grade–especially if assessments are MCQ-based.

^[12] And, unfortunately, a somewhat atypical experience for learners–perhaps due to the culture of competition and “cheating” concerns in marks-driven academic settings.

^[13] Sometimes you hear the term group used–group work, group projects, etc. Not by us! When there is a shared goal and shared accountability (like the team-based, team-driven research project in Dawn’s class) we choose to use team rather than group on purpose; team and group have different meanings.