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.
Introduction to Feedback
In a snowboard lesson, feedback is the information given to students as they progress through a lesson with the goal of improving their riding. This information will often take the form of how to move their body or board differently to overcome an inefficiency as they practice a particular task or trick.
Beyond that it’s also an opportunity to further build a bond between student and instructor, provide encouragement and create an environment of growth within a lesson. Considering how feedback is delivered is key for keeping students stoked and helping them improve.
Feedback may be verbal or non-verbal. Words from their instructor will be the most obvious form of feedback for a student but a high-five, fist bump or even just seeing their instructor super stoked with their riding can be just as, if not even more powerful!
Let’s take a closer look at some things to consider when starting out giving feedback to students.
Constructive Feedback
Constructive feedback is the process of first reinforcing what a student has done right, then giving actionable advice to help them improve on what didn’t go so well.
Giving praise to what a student has done well lets them know what to continue doing in future as well as helping students stay stoked and provide reassurance they’re on the right track. Feedback here may also take the form of praising the students effort whilst learning the skill; it may take several attempts to succeed with a task so helping students stay motivated to keep trying is key.
It’s also important that each student is given individual feedback to improve their riding. A good way to start out here is to provide information about what to do in future, instead of letting the student know what they did wrong. Pointing out a student’s flaws can make them lose motivation at a time where they may already be starting to feel frustrated or starting to lose confidence. Keeping information future-focused will help students to stay positive; drawing attention to what can be changed, instead of dwelling on previous attempts.
Example
A student is learning toeside control and has made it down a whole run of the learner’s slope without hands on assistance for the first time. You are stoked but can see that they still feel unbalanced and are using a lot of upper body movement and hip flexion to balance rather than using their knees and ankles. An example of constructive feedback here would be:
“Hey, that was awesome! Nice work making the whole way down on your own for the first time. You’re really starting to find the right balance point on your edge. Let’s go back up again and see if you can keep your head nice and high and your back up a little more straight. That’ll help you feel more stable and keep things smooth.”
Positive vs Negative
When considering the form feedback delivery takes, one of the most common misconceptions is that it should always be positive. Think of the positivity of your feedback as a spectrum or a scale. At one end you have positive and the other you have negative.
It’s possible to present any type of feedback in both a positive and a negative way, or somewhere in between. Different students will enjoy varying approaches here. Some may respond well to constant positivity and fully committed stoke, regardless of how they are actually performing. Others may find this constant positivity too false and may prefer a more neutral approach. Some students, albeit only a few, can even respond well to a slightly negative, hard-line approach.
It is often best to begin with a fairly neutral approach and adjust as the student-teacher relationship grows. Remember, that when receiving feedback the underlying intention is for a positive end result in order to progress and develop.
Hot Tip
When deciding how positive or negative your feedback should be for a student, empathy is the key to maintaining a strong relationship. Ask yourself: "How would I feel with that feedback?"
With more positive feedback: 'Would this stoke me out or feel like too much?' With negative: "Would that cut me down or challenge me to push myself harder and improve?"
Sometimes Less is More…
When giving feedback a common mistake is to provide too much feedback. By constantly bombarding students with different pieces of information they can easily become overwhelmed. Instead, giving them lots of mileage time for each piece of feedback allows them to fully explore and take ownership of the new ‘how’ before moving on. It’s also important to avoid creating students who are totally dependent on their instructor for feedback.
There are also times when a student might not want any feedback at all; this could be if they only had a few attempts at a task, were distracted or are just starting to get frustrated. Sometimes all a student needs is some encouragement to try again!
Example
Self reflection is a useful tool here.
A good way to start is to consider what you would want if you were in the same situation as your student; "If that was me, would I want feedback now?"
For example a student has just started to work on c-turns on their own without assistance, but only managed one attempt when the slope became busy as a big group passed through. Would you want feedback in this situation?