Think back to the last time you gave someone feedback – in person, on video chat, on a document or assignment. How did it go? Did they thank you? And most importantly, did anything change?
Here at Mote, we’re obsessed with these questions, because we believe they hold the key to unlocking more – and better – feedback. And this matters, because feedback is the essential ingredient in all learning. But don’t just take our world for it. According to the Education Endowment Foundation,
“Feedback studies tend to show very high effects on learning.”
Education Endowment Foundation
World-class companies like Netflix make continuous feedback a cornerstone of their culture:
” Feedback is a continuous part of how we communicate and work with one another versus an occasional formal exercise.”
Netflix Culture Statement
Yet the challenges of feedback cannot be overlooked. In that same EEF study, the conclusions include the finding that:
Providing effective feedback is challenging…it is likely to require sustained professional development to improve practice, and this includes active inquiry and evaluation.
Education Endowment Foundation
While for Netflix, former employees have reported that feedback “‘…can be intense and awkward”, and that “the pressure to give and receive feedback was ‘the hardest part about the culture.”
Fix feedback…with feedback?
Recognizing that feedback is both really important and really hard, here at Mote we’re working on tools that make it easier to give and receive better feedback. And while we started with a focus on improving the medium of feedback, we know it’s also essential to help improve the message, which starts with helping feedback creators to better understand what’s working.
We’ve just released a major update that makes it easier for users to track the engagement that their mote feedback has received. Feedback creators can see – and hear – all of the feedback that they’ve left on their Activity feed, and can filter this by whether it’s been ‘moticed‘, as well as by the recipient, the assignment and class. Recipients leave emoji reactions on feedback, which also helps feedback creators to understand what’s clear and actionable for recipients, and what’s not working quite so well.
It’s a step towards our vision of a world that learns faster through feedback, one with all the benefits of feedback – authentic human connection, faster, more personalized learning – with none of the downsides. If you’re excited about that vision, then please hit ‘follow’, drop us a line, or try mote for yourself.
