1. Understand The Importance Of Feedback In The Learning Process
What do I need to do to do well here:
- Understand the importance of feedback in the learning process
Feedback is essential to development, after all practise without reflection, where the learner receives internal feedback through their thoughts and feelings around their own beliefs, aims and motivations, which will not lead to any form of deeper learning. Practise with only external feedback, from the instructor/coach, can only focus on the behaviour that was exhibited as it can’t possibly perceive the thoughts, feelings or beliefs that motivated the skill.
Practising without feedback from the instructor/coach could lead to a misunderstanding of one’s strengths and weaknesses on the pupil’s behalf, as they focus on their weaknesses with no consideration of their strengths or can be misled by inherent beliefs and attitudes.
Practise with no feedback at all would just be wasted practise.
Therefore feedback must come in the form of a 3-way dialogue with the coachee’s internal thoughts, feelings and beliefs being measured against their external behaviour with input from the instructor/coach to enhance the learner’s understanding of their strengths, their areas for development and any motivating factors.
In this way, the pupil learns more holistically about themselves as a driver, than when simply focusing on skill development, or through being told how to behave. Practise is essential for the development of psychomotor skills, however, feedback and reflection are essential for learning about the cognitive beliefs and motivations and affective feelings and emotions which are the key to safe driving, impulse control and risk management.
When giving feedback make it regularly throughout the lesson, ensure that it is Positively accentuated rather than negatively, developmental rather than fault focused. Elicit feedback mainly from the pupil and add value, to enhance understanding, by giving your knowledge and expertise where necessary, and as previously stated in the last competence, ensure you provide feedback whenever your pupil asks for it.
Be aware of other forms of feedback, expressed by the learner and the instructor, such as body language and tone of voice to ensure that what you or your pupils are saying verbally, matches with tone of voice, body language and reality. Explore any discrepancies between the communication from your client and ensure that there are no conflicting elements in your feedback, ensure that what you do and say, your expression and tone, match with your intended message and the reality of the performance.
The DVSA ADI 1 states:
All feedback should be relevant, positive and honest. Rather than saying somebody has a weakness, consider expressing it as a learning opportunity. However, if they need to be told something is wrong or dangerous there is no point in waffling. The pupil should have a realistic sense of their own performance. Feedback is a two-way street. It should, ideally, be prompted by the pupil with the ADI responding to the pupil’s questions or comments. The pupil’s feedback should never be overlooked or disregarded