Professor Paula J. Manning (Detroit Mercy University School of Law), Affective, Effective Feedback

In three short pages, Paula Manning provides an incredibly useful guide to providing product feedback on law students exams and papers. It is definitely worth the two minutes. I have reproduced what is, more or less, her introduction.

Undermining confidence, reducing autonomy or increasing student unhappiness might be unfortunate by-products of several commonly used feedback techniques. After taking a critical look at the effectiveness (or, as it turned out, ineffectiveness) of my feedback, I set out to find ways to support student autonomy and foster happiness through and discovered that simple changes in feedback methodologies produced exciting results. This article describes some of the work that inspired me and the changes I’ve implemented, in the hopes that others might begin to find ways to use feedback as a means to support, encourage and inspire students.

Any discussion of supporting student autonomy should probably begin witha nod to Ken Sheldon and Larry Kreiger, whose work describes the harmful effects of a legal education that dehumanizes students and destroys autonomy.

In setting a goal of better supporting student autonomy, my objectives were to use feedback to do the things suggested by Sheldon and Krieger, and others in the field. Specifically, I planned to: (1) build students up by showing appreciation, respect and understanding for their work; (2) develop students’ self-understanding and reflection skills– helping students to focus on non competitive, achievable learning goals, i.e., doing their best and learning the material—rather than on beating everyone else; and (3) to build self-efficacy, instilling in my students the belief that success was within their grasp, so long as they persisted in their efforts.

. . .