Grayson Parker

MUED 271

Dr. Maynard

5 October 2020

Feedback Summary

Feedback. Not criticism, but information to use to enrich your brain and allow you to

always become better and learn more. People don’t realize it, but teachers are lifetime

students. As a teacher I feel like you are always making changes to your approach based on new

technologies or even just your set of students. Every day is a learning opportunity for a teacher,

and believe it or not, our students are our biggest teachers. I think that the importance of

feedback was truly captured in this chapter, and a lot of things I read really made me realize

new things that pertain to the classroom. Some of his points I never really thought about, and I

am very glad that they were brought to my attention.

Feedback is everywhere. My biggest takeaway is that the slightest gesture like a raised

hand is feedback. I never really thought about how every single reaction to anything really is

feedback. Another huge takeaway is that the person on the other end of the feedback may not

always really understand or take it the way that it was intended. Long story short, there is an

art to giving feedback. Too much positivity can make someone believe they don’t need to work

harder, and too much negativity could hurt someone or push them to give up. I found it

important to read that new teachers don’t immediately get this. It takes time and is almost a

different language to learn. I love that he kept reiterating “purposeful feedback.” There is a fine
line on what needs to be said and what does not. I think this will be an extremely important

lesson for every young teacher to learn, especially in the music field.