Friday 27 November 2015

critical reflection on roles of peer and tutor feedback

The role of peer and tutor feedback is important in any evaluation such as a presentation or report. The purpose of this feedback is to scrutinize any weaknesses and strengths of the subject and ultimately improving the quality of content in the future.
I started doing these kind of evaluation when I was in polytechnic. It was new to me and I began to understand the purpose of it especially in presentations. Since there were a lot of presentations done at diploma level, there was a need for peer evaluation from almost every module that I took. Frankly, at first I thought that it was unnecessary as I felt that these feedback was not going to be ‘utilized’ by the students as there were not so much emphasis on its importance. Now that I am in university level, the need for peer feedback as well as from our tutors are all the more important as our reports are getting more complex and detailed. Writing a feedback is easy but to be honest in your feedback can be quite difficult as you do not want to be too negative and thus hurting the other person’s feelings.
One good example was the reader response that I did. I received critical feedback from my professor and analyzed that feedback in detail. I did not went through this kind of process back in polytechnic and having a professor evaluating my piece was very interesting. With the feedback, I knew what my weaknesses and strengths were and I improved on each of the draft for my piece. This ranged from grammar to the formatting of the essay. I need to analyze these kinds of comments and this will definitely improve my writing skills for future job prospects. For presentation wise, the feedback I received from both peers and tutor has significantly improved my understanding and requirements for a good presentation. I learnt that we should try to engage the audience through story-telling as people like to listen to stories. I also understood my mistakes for my oral presentation and will try not to repeat the same mistakes. 
I believe that having multiple feedbacks can help improve my writing skills exponentially. This can be useful and can be translated to other modules where there are bound to be group reports. Having the group sit down and giving feedback to one another about the writing styles as well as grammar and content can greatly improve my understanding of the subject and able to zoom in into greater detail the room of improvement. This could make my report more interesting without having to squeeze unnecessary input for the sake of numbers.


Edited on (03/12/2015)

4 comments:

  1. Hi Mubin, as a fellow Ngee Ann Poly Alumni, I have went through the communication in our diploma as well and I also feel there is something missing in the poly's communication module. Personally I feel Brad cares about us and his approach in teaching is nothing we had experience. I am proud to be in this learning journey with the class. The people here are mature and willing to share feedback positively. You have definitely improved for the past 12 weeks, I can imagine what you have gone through during your poly in this blog.

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  2. Hi Mubin,

    I agree that it is easy to give feedback to our peers but the hard part comes in when you have to be honest in your feedback. But without these brutal feedbacks, we won't be able to improve effectively. It's nice to hear that we are improving together from these feedbacks from both our peers and Brad. Let's work hard and improve together:D

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  3. Hi Mubin,

    As a Ngee Ann Polytechnic Alumni myself, i also have gone through the communication module as well. I felt that Brad's effective communication module is a lot better than any of my previous experience in a communication module. I have to agree with you that giving a honest feedback is difficult but that is the best feedback that your peers can ever received.

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  4. Thank you, Mubin, for your honest assessment of the feedback process. I'm glad that you found some of this useful, and I also understand why students may be hesitant to give really critical feedback to a peer. Step by step, however, what I saw happen in our class was that the level of seriousness increased, and also with experience, each of you became more aware not just of the value of the feedback and the purpose but also the importance of being honest
    and giving students real help.

    I'm happy that you were part of this T1 group and that you all bonded so well in the course.

    Best of luck on the next stage of your learning journey!

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