Delivering Feedback is the art of giving students information on their performance as they try different activities. This chapter explores some tools for providing feedback and how they can be used to help create an engaging environment for students.
Developing Feedback
As lessons become more advanced and move beyond the beginner area students will start to encounter an even wider range of issues and inefficiencies. They will also start to become much more aware of their movements and the feelings associated with success and failure with a task or trick.
This gives instructors some more options for delivering feedback that move beyond simple one way, instantaneous feedback from instructor to student that can help to elevate the quality of teaching, and achievement for the student, even further.
Let’s take a look at some of the ways to expand the feedback toolbox…
INTRINSIC & EXTRINSIC FEEDBACK
A great place to start developing feedback is to consider that it’s possible for feedback to be delivered to the student/athlete by an external source, such as the instructor or coach, and from an internal source, such as our proprioceptors. These types of feedback are known as extrinsic (external) and intrinsic (internal).
Intrinsic feedback
Intrinsic feedback is information received by the student as a direct result of producing a movement through the sensory perception and proprioception pathways, such as feelings from muscles, joints and balance. It is important for both the student and instructor to understand that this is happening when practising movements. As the student’s awareness increases, they will be able to refine the movements by themselves. The instructor’s role here is to aid the student’s interpretation of this intrinsic feedback.
Extrinsic feedback
Extrinsic feedback is information that comes from an external source, such as the instructor, a video, or even watching another student. It may or may not be built into the movement itself, but it should help the student to create a mental picture of what the movement or activity should look like.
Augmented feedback
Augmented feedback represents a collaboration between the student and the instructor, where the instructor adds or adjusts information that the student perceives about their performance. It is intended to improve the intrinsic feedback loop within the student. This type of feedback is easier to understand when you consider the simple idea of offering feedback to help improve a movement after the student has attempted it. Once provided, the hope is that the new movement will be committed to muscle memory through practice and continually successful results (e.g. remaining balanced throughout a toe turn) and measured through intrinsic feedback (e.g. even stability over the balls of both feet).
Hot Tip
When practising your use of augmented feedback, begin with a question to ensure that you understand what your student is actually experiencing, then base your feedback on their response
When starting out, it’s often best to ask a question about the effect that the rider might experience rather than the cause that led to it. For example; a student struggling with toeside turns when going off-trail will usually be able to feel that the toeside feels worse, but might not yet know why. Asking the student a question like: “Hey, did you feel a bit more unstable on your toeside than heelside during that run?” can help to get your student talking and give you some information to start working with.
See Seek-Give-Seek and Question-based Learning for more advanced reading on this topic.
Initial and Delayed Feedback
Timing is everything!
This expression is highly relevant to delivering feedback, especially in the sporting world. There are two main types of feedback relative to timing: initial and delayed.
Initial feedback
Initial feedback occurs as soon as the student has finished their performance or upon completion of a task. This could be when the student/athlete has stopped sliding or even when a particular movement within their riding is complete. Often, when initial feedback is offered it’s very easy for your student to attach it to sensations, responses in their snowboard and hopefully some successes. This type of feedback is very useful in moving from the cognitive to associative stage of skill acquisition (see the Stages of Skill Acquisition).
Delayed feedback
Delayed feedback occurs when there is a period of time between skill execution and delivery of feedback. This can be useful to allow the student’s experience to solidify and for the instructor to seek a better environment in which to deliver the feedback, such as a chairlift. Depending on the amount of delay your student may or may not remember the situation you are offering feedback for. It’s possible to cause confusion between some similar situations that your student may have experienced and worse still, the feedback now has no relevance due to the natural progression of your student. That being said, delayed feedback offers opportunity for more discussion and self reflection, which helps students move from the associative to autonomous stage of skill acquisition.
For less experienced instructors and coaches, it’s important that initial feedback is provided every time a student or athlete attempts the presented task. This should give the student confirmation that they understood and are achieving the task. This can be as simple as: “That’s it, you got it first time! Try it again to make sure.” Alternatively, it may be a reminder of something they have missed or could use a little more: “Remember to lead with your knee.”
An experienced instructor or coach will move between initial and delayed feedback throughout lessons, often without giving it much thought. However, taking the time to self reflect on why the chosen feedback type was used, helps us to continually fine-tune our feedback delivery.
Hot Tip
Instructors and coaches spend a lot of time learning, practising and refining how to construct their feedback in order to deliver it to students with optimal effect. The art of feedback delivery can take time to craft. Start exploring and experimenting with more feedback types outside of this manual and allow yourself to become more creative with your choices and influence the overall sense of achievement that can be enjoyed within your lessons.
