“Feedback, like rain, should be gentle enough to nourish a person’s growth without destroying the roots.” This quote (modified from the original by Frank A. Clark) is a simple reminder that feedback can be helpful or not, assume a variety of forms, be provided at different times, and have diverse effects on different people. But what if there were a drought (no rain, no feedback)? Consider the following two questions: If a tree falls in the woods and nobody’s around to hear it – does it make a noise? If a teacher instructs some content or skill and doesn’t assess and support learning – can students deeply learn? In both cases, the answer is no.
So feedback is really important – not just for learning new things, but pretty much across all of life. There are countless examples of feedback in nature – with both positive and negative functions. For example, our hypothalamus reacts to changes in temperature and responds appropriately. If the temperature drops, we shiver to bring up the temperature, and if it’s too hot, we sweat to cool down via evaporation. Predator–prey relations in nature are also well-known examples of feedback loops, as is climate change. The key difference between positive and negative feedback is their response to change – positive feedback accelerates change while negative feedback delays change.
What does all this have to do with the book that you’re about to dive into? We’re all giving and getting feedback throughout our lives – in the classroom, on the job, as part of family life, and so on. How can we ensure that the feedback we give and get is effective and constructive? That’s covered in the book. For example, as a teacher, I want my students to excel and grow so I provide lots of feedback (and they similarly return the favor, with the goal to improve my teaching skills). As an employee, I need valid feedback to perform my best, and as an employer, I need to give constructive feedback to those who work for me. Finally, as a parent, I want my kids to grow into awesome adults, and I’m fairly certain they want me to be a good parent. Can one book possibly cover the wide range of feedback contexts and types? This one comes close.
I suspect that I was asked to write this foreword because of the literature review I published a decade ago in the Review of Educational Research titled “Focus on Formative Feedback.” That particular project was something I’d been longing to do for years – to wrap my head around the slippery, often conflicting feedback findings in the literature, then provide a things-to-do (and things-to-avoid) set of tables at the end for practitioners. Since then, there has been considerably more work in the feedback arena. This book – The Cambridge Handbook of Instructional Feedback, edited by Anastasiya A. Lipnevich and Jeffrey K. Smith – is an excellent convergence of the most current feedback work in a wonderful one-stop book. The chapters comprise a delicious smorgasbord of feedback-related topics ranging from theoretical to empirical research, qualitative to quantitative work, in the contexts of K-12 classrooms to higher education and the workplace, and spanning different countries for cross-cultural perspectives (e.g., Singapore, the United States, South Africa, Japan, Spain, Sweden). Feedback is examined relative to who is giving it (e.g., a computer or game vs. teachers vs. self vs. peer), who is receiving it, and the content areas in which the feedback is employed (e.g., math, science, writing, medicine, and music). Cognitive as well as affective states can benefit from feedback too – which is also covered. The twenty-seven chapters are not only diverse, but they’re written by luminaries in the field. I close as I started, with a quote: “Feedback may be a gift, but constructive feedback is an investment” (Brad Boyson).
