Feedback can be very helpful. Equally, it can be frustrating and time-consuming to try and understand and absorb. It can be short or long. Seemingly simple or complex. The best thing about feedback is when it draws me out of myself and makes me stop and think about why I hold a certain point of view or why I am pursuing my project in a specific way or direction., The best feedback challenges me which doesn’t necessarily mean that I will change direction. For example, I had some feedback on self-criticism and self-evaluation. The feedback encouraged me and told me not to always be so hard on myself, to focus less on my output and more on awareness, how I interpret my work and the reasons and meanings behind it. Another student told me to think of nurture which I have long thought is a feature of the safe space of peer feedback in the learning environment. Finally, in this area, a comment was made that stopped me in my tracks. While worry and self-doubt might seem similar to self-reflection these things are not necessarily synonymous. Self-reflection comes from a place of knowing not a place of worrying. I should not question my choices but instead, reflect on how to use my experiences and my successes to help refine and to improve my work. This shows that feedback isn’t always on the technical side of some test pieces I present but can be on anything. Of course, if I choose, I can ask my peer group to focus on a specific area which would narrow down what they comment on. Also, I feel, it would lessen potential for more startling and unexpected observations.

The course notes for this unit ask for a mixture of tutor and peer feedback. Tutor feedback is stable and known. It comes from a single source I have dealt with many times. Peer feedback is chaotic. To these two types of feedback, I will add in my collaborative project work as much of that is an experience in feedback and challenging ideas, providing new avenues for research or creative endeavours.  Both help me reconsider my work. In the academic sense of studying with the OCA, I think that distance learning without student interaction and peer or tutor feedback would be a very different and more challenging thing.

The skills involved in feedback are two-way skills which will go beyond the end of my studies with the OCA.  In seeking feedback outside of the OCA this is likely to be a very different thing, removed from the academic walls which represent a safe space to me. I mention two-way as feedback can be given and received. Also, even within the space of seeking feedback, I am not an inert force but am presenting and encouraging others, taking notes, selecting information and material I want feedback on, and then, presentation skills in delivering to an audience. When asking for feedback, I select what work I want feedback on, I collate this into whatever form I choose and present this to my audience. I then use listening or reading skills as my peers make their points. Finally, there is a reflective phase where I decide if points are valid or relevant to my practice and if I can identify opportunities to change my practice in some way to take the feedback on board then I need to consider how I might do this and how long such changes might take and of course what the outcome might be and my consideration of points made and then thinking if I can adapt my practice in any way to encompass the points made. Feedback is about problem-solving, and communication and uses analytical skills but at the same time, this is not always logic-based as feedback can be about the emotional response., Many of these points apply when offering feedback; reflecting on what is being asked, considering what I want to say and how, and responding to questions or rejection of my feedback. I can imagine that as my practice develops beyond my OCA studies there might be opportunities in the future where I am asked for feedback. Some people seem to have made a business out of this from what I have observed from some portfolio reviews. I wonder if that changes the feedback paradigm and changes the person seeking feedback into a customer but only after a financial transaction is made. Is feedback in such a session better or worse than with people I have built a relationship with and have a level of trust? This brings me to the time element of feedback. Whether as a purchase or as peer feedback in the university setting, the feedback given or received is shaped around the time I have available to offer feedback and the time I have available to receive and absorb what has been offered.

The external feedback option might well change how I present my work, with an eye on the clock, I might restrict what I ask for feedback on based on research I conduct on the person offering feedback and looking at their background, their likes and dislikes. Thinking of this as a customer retail relationship allows me to ask harder questions of that person. What will they offer to me and to my practice? Would I consider them to be trustworthy when I share ideas? What do they get from the experience beyond money? These are life skills in evaluating people, going into this new relationship with my eyes open, being organised and asking reasonable questions. I realise that this might sound slightly cynical of me.

Two other things I want to say here about reflection. I mentioned taking on board the comments and suggestions of others or maybe rejecting them. I need to be aware that sometimes depending on who says something and how they say it will impact how I take this feedback. It is a very human response but something to be aware of. I also didn’t mention how long reflection can take. Reflection is not an instant thing for me. As I re-read something, even months later, a new idea might pop into my head and I’ll think about the feedback received differently. Is that the same as visiting an art gallery or watching a film or reading a book more than once?

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