The Impact of Your Feedback
- Inspires the team to keep learning and developing their ideas
- Builds their confidence with constructive and positive feedback
- Is part of a team’s learning experience
- Contributes to the building of future changemakers
✅ Before You Give Feedback: Check the Team’s Division
You will be giving feedback to teams of all divisions; the team’s division will be listed in the booking confirmation email.
Each session you have with a team will differ based on their division, experience, and submission requirements for their project.
Focus on each team’s progress individually, rather than comparing them to others.
Provide Actionable Feedback
Be constructive, use a courteous and polite tone when giving feedback, written or verbal
- Students are learning, so it won’t be perfect, but you can get them on the right track.
Coaches are encouraged to be honest but constructive with teams
- If they have an idea that won’t be beneficial to their success, let them know and suggest alternatives that they can explore.
Build their confidence!
- If they have an awesome idea, tell them that it is! It will probably get them to be open and share more with you.
- If you are going to discourage an idea, give suggestions of other options they can consider.
Ask guiding questions to students to help determine the root cause of the problem they are facing and/or find solutions that work for their situation.
Provide Actionable Feedback Using the BOOST Model
Balanced
Goal: Address both positive and developmental areas, not just or the other!
Before giving feedback, ask yourself: What information can I share that is relevant, thoughtful, and will have an impact on future performance results?
Objective
Goal: Focus on behavior and actions, rather than personality or personal preference.
Before giving feedback, ask yourself:What information can I share that is based on descriptions of actions and behaviors?
Observed
Goal: Focus on what you are seeing in the submission within the context of the team’s division and corresponding rubric.
Before giving feedback, ask yourself: What information can I share that is impartial and is a first hand account of witnessed performance (saw/heard)?
Specific
Goal: Make observations and feedback clear, concise, and specific so teams know what you are looking for. Remember, they will not be able to ask follow-up questions after your meeting.
Before giving feedback, ask yourself: What information can I share (based on the rubric) that is detailed enough to help the receiver understand what was observed and how it impacted outcomes?
Timely
Goal: Technovation has this one covered for you! Give feedback at the first opportunity so that it feels relevant to the work done!
Source: UCI Human Resources. BOOST Feedback Model, https://hr.uci.edu/partnership/merit/interactive/story_content/external_files/BOOSTFINALresource.pdf
☑️ What to Avoid in Your Feedback
Avoid harsh or negative language and tone
- Coaches are only providing feedback, online, so context and tone can be more challenging to understand
- You want the team to feel celebrated for what has been accomplished and encouraged to continue learning
Avoid only pointing out what students have done wrong
- It’s okay to mention areas that are unclear or inconsistent, just ensure you tell students why it seems unclear and how they can make it clearer.
How to Give Constructive Feedback for Common Issues
🔇 Submission Issue: Sound not working on the video
Instead of saying: “I can’t hear your video.”
You can say: Great start filming your video! I liked [this part]. As you continue developing your pitch, you can look into ways to improve the sound on your video. Try to film in locations with less noise or maybe test out some video editing tools to help us hear your ideas more clearly!
📱 Submission Issue: Unclear how app functions
Instead of saying, “I don’t understand your app”
You can say: As you keep building your app, develop your screens and functionality to make it clear how each screen is being used. Here are a few ideas: you can consider how different screens might work, or which datasets exist that might be helpful or even hardware on the user’s phone the app may use.
❓ Team needs to consider if an app is the right solution
Instead of saying, ” We don’t need an app for this”
You can say:
A next step in your app might be thinking about your competitors and if this technology is solving the problem you are trying to address. Have you talked with people that might use it? This will help you continue to adapt and grow your idea!
Culturally Sustaining
🌍 Technovation is a global community that brings together girls from an array of places, cultures, and circumstances.
As a coach, and part of the Technovation community, you should support a diversity of ideas and approaches to solving community issues. Understanding that the submissions are a reflection of different perspectives and experiences of the team.
Being Culturally Responsive
🌍 Technovation Girls is a global community that brings together girls from an array of places, cultures, and circumstances.
As a coach, and part of the Technovation community, you should support a diversity of ideas and approaches to solving community issues. Understanding that the submissions are a reflection of different perspectives and experiences of the team.
It’s important to recognize the students’ resilience and bravery in choosing to tackle such challenging and meaningful problems in the program.
Address Unconcious Bias
Before you start meeting with teams, take a moment to address any unconscious biases you may have, and put them aside.
Below are examples of situations where unconscious bias could unintentionally influence coach meetings with teams.
Girls come from different cultures and have different communication styles
English is not the first language for many of our participants.
You are not expected to be an expert on different communities and their cultures – just to keep an open mind!
Access to technology and other materials will vary from team to team
Students will have different levels of awareness and access to resources.
Submissions should not be penalized for their level of resource access.
This is a technology program for beginners and is a chance to learn and grow
Some participants might have known nothing about coding, AI, or even computers prior to this program – it’s okay that they aren’t experts and that their ideas are not ready to go to market.
I still have a question
You can always reach out to Technovation’s Volunteer Engagement Team on Slack or at volunteers@technovation.org.
