Seek-Give-Seek Feedback

Building on the knowledge of effective feedback, we can take this one step further with the goal of creating a more engaging learning experience for our students and athletes.

Seek-Give-Seek is a model that can help the student to be more conscious of their own performance. It encourages the student to self reflect on a given task and to verbalise this with the instructor or coach. Importantly, Seek-Give-Seek empowers the student to make decisions on what happens next in the lesson or session and to have control of their path, and their own learning.

Seek

As a starting point, the instructor must ensure that the student has a focus for the run or activity. The student also needs to have clarity of the intended outcome. The focus can be a specific body part or a particular board performance in a specified phase of turn or trick. A single focus keeps it simple for the student and helps them to receive intrinsic feedback as to whether they are able to perform the task or not.

The instructor is now able to seek information from their student by asking questions, encouraging the student to describe their experience or feelings from performing the task (I.e. their intrinsic feedback).

If the student is unable to reflect on the specific task, or begins discussing a different task, then it should be clear to the instructor that the student lacks clarity of outcome and further explanation may be required. Alternatively, it might be appropriate for the instructor to change the focus.

In this example, the student lacks clarity of the previous focus provided by the instructor, which was to “Line up nice and early with the box and keep your speed.” This focus was too vague for the student, so further clarity was needed to be given by the instructor.

Give

Once the instructor has the information they require, they can now give feedback to their student (extrinsic feedback). The purpose here is to provide facts on their performance, not judgement. Deliver the feedback in a non-judgmental and respectful way. The goal here is to remove any potential for the student to take offence and, in turn, damage the positive student-coach relationship you have built.

Feedback should always be respectful, with consideration of language, and the emotional relationship the instructor has with the student. Using “you” and “your” puts more emphasis on the student making the error, and can make it personal. Giving feedback in a factual way, that refers to a third point of reference (such as the board) will help take any personal emotion out of the feedback.

Seek

Once the student has had a chance to reflect on the feedback, the instructor can ask them what they would like to do next in order to be more consistent or improve further. This process utilises augmented feedback, blending and balancing the student’s intrinsic feedback with the extrinsic feedback provided by the instructor.

How the instructor continues to adapt and develop the students from here will depend on their responses. The students have little or no knowledge on how they can continue to develop technically, but they do understand themselves and they know how it felt for them. They may want to continue practising the same exact thing to help it become more autonomous, or they may wish to adapt it to make it more challenging. The instructor then needs to guide this development, utilising the information gained previously, with the goal of creating a positive learning environment.

In this example, the instructor has three different options for how to continue the lesson, all being guided by the student.