The Effective Feedback Loop in Learning

posted on Jul 13, 2020

Consider a player learning to play soccer or football. He/she kicks the ball in a certain way to score a penalty. The success rate of the player is one goal out of five kicks. Now, consider the coach of the player who tells him/her to tweak the style of his/her kick and concentrate on scoring differently.

Consider a player learning to play soccer or football. He/she kicks the ball in a certain way to score a penalty. The success rate of the player is one goal out of five kicks. Now, consider the coach of the player who tells him/her to tweak the style of his/her kick and concentrate on scoring differently. The player takes the advice, processes it for some time and gets playing again. This time, the success has improved to three goals out of five tries. In this event, the kick of the player is the input of the event, scoring the goal is the outcome and the advice of the coach is the feedback to the whole system that helped improve the results.

So, what is a feedback loop?

Feedback is any information that is derived from the output and fed into the input to help progress the effectivity of future outcomes. The whole system exists in a loop when the connection is continuous. That is, the output of an event is continuously measured to be fed into the input which is then processed to form another output that generates new feedback for the input. As evident, a feedback loop in learning is an effective pedagogical tool for all the top 10 CBSE schools in Greater Noida West. Without it, the advancement of education or any form of coaching is almost impossible.

Effective feedback loops

Not all feedback is effective. At times, some are unnecessary while others may lead to negative consequences. Consider the example of the football player and his/her coach again. The advice from the trainer must have come at the right time and in the right way to have helped the outcome. Now, say the coach continuously steps in to make a suggestion. This can take away the originality of the player and shatter his/her self-confidence. The feedback loop was, no doubt, present but it did no good to the outcome.

Hence, the best play school in Greater Noida West focuses on designing effective feedback loops from the very beginning. It places its young students into efficient learning loops that not only help them to improve their knowledge trove but also allow freedom in education. Here are a few factors that constitute effective feedback loops of learning irrespective of the grade or class of the students concerned.

1. Timing of the feedback

Human beings are wired to generate their own learning feedback loops. When we make a mistake, we start dissecting it almost immediately to learn from it and try our best to avoid the same the next time. When teachers, trainers, and coaches step in to provide external feedback and advice, it must complement this internal feedback. Timing the feedback right is thus essential to increase the effectiveness of the suggestion.

2. Form of the feedback

Students can accept feedback in various ways. They can either listen to their teacher’s advice. Or, they can read the note sent to them by the teacher. Some may even respond to feedback better when the action is enacted by the coach or shown over a video online. The way of giving feedback or the form of it matters because the advice needs to reach the student in a way that the student is comfortable accepting the same. Otherwise, the loop will remain incomplete even when the right feedback is available.

3. Scope of feeding forward

An effective feedback loop does not only include a suggestion from the teacher. The students also have their freedom to include their own inputs into changing the outcome. Say the football player received the feedback from the coach. He/she then improvised on the suggestion, added his/her innovative way to take the kick and further improved the penalty success rate to four out of five. This is feedforward in learning. And it maintains the individuality of the student involved without him/her getting too dependent on feedback from teachers.

The curriculum pedagogy of BGS Vijnatham is hinged on effective feedback loops on all areas of education and upskilling. The best preschool in Greater Noida West carefully stitches the above three together to create its learning feedback loop and help children to progress their academics in the right way by infusing feedback with adaptability, personalisation, activity and continuity. There is free-flowing communication between the BGS students and teachers. Feedback flows both ways to continuously improve education’s benchmark. Schools that use the feedback loop in its true essence naturally succeed for learning is about the micro experiences rather than pure information. Right from scoring a perfect grade in any subject to scoring five penalties out of five tries, feedback is what converts mistakes into successes.