Virtual World Summit Judge Training

Below is constructive feedback given to a team by Judges. These are great examples of the type of feedback we hope you will give as a judge.

Feedback for the Project Description: I like very much your short description of the project. It depicts perfectly what you’re willing to achieve with your app and clearly states objectives, your mission and the techniques you used to make your application possible.

Feedback for the Learning Journey: This is a very strong section of the submission! I love how clearly you’ve laid out your wireframe, it really showed your design process. Thank you for including so many screenshots and design images. Your resourcefulness in troubleshooting how to iterate/improve your app by turning to the Thunkable community and YouTube are very relatable in a real-would environment. A very impressive submission for this division.

Feedback for the Pitch Video: The presentation was extremely well put together and clear. The issues being affected were clearly discussed such as the statistics on epilepsy. To improve there could have been more talk on what was changed depending on the findings

Feedback for the Technical video: This demonstrates the team has coded an app that works and has all the user features described in their pitch video which is excellent. The team could describe what features they intend to add to the app in the future to improve even more.

Feedback for the User Adoption Plan: The improvements based on feedback of the UI being too bright shows that your open and willing to listen to constructive to feedback and to adapt. The marketing and distribution section seems reasonable and realistic

Asking questions to the teams is a learning opportunity for both the teams and the Judges. Teams can better explain their thought processes, learning journey, decision making and goals to Judges. 

Things to keep in mind when thinking about your questions for the teams:

• Make sure your question is short and clear. 
• Ask one question at a time, it’s difficult for speakers to remember more than 1 question. Some teams will have a translator with them, so making questions easy to translate in a responsible period of time is important. 
• Might seem obvious, but make sure you ask a question that would have a “?” at the end if you wrote it down. 
• Keep questions within the scope of the program and the team’s work and future goals. 
• If you want to add a modifier regarding your knowledge before your question (e.g. “I am not familiar with concept X, …), that’s fine and can help the speaker to put your question into context and provide an answer with appropriate levels of detail. But it’s not strictly necessary, even if you ARE familiar with the subject, it’s ok to not know things or to seek clarification.
• Take into account the age of the team. Consider restricting the really challenging and critical questions to senior division teams.

Before reviewing submissions and providing feedback to the teams, it’s important to take a moment to acknowledge any bias you may have. This includes thinking about your identity and how that gives you a unique perspective to share new ideas and insights to help the girls grow.

Girls come from different cultures and have different speaking styles and norms

• 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.

Participants access to materials vary

• Students will have different levels of awareness and access to resources.
• Submissions should not be penalized for their level of technology resource access.

This program is technology for beginners! 

• Some participants probably know nothing about coding or AI prior to this program – it’s okay that they aren’t experts and that their ideas are not ready to go to market.

Balanced

Address both positive and developmental areas, it cannot be one or the other!

Question to keep in mind: What information can I share that is relevant, thoughtful, and will have an impact on future performance results?

Objective

Focus on behaviour and actions, rather than personality or personal preference

Question to keep in mind: What information can I share that is based on descriptions of actions and behaviours?

Observed

Focus on what you are seeing in the submission within the context of the team’s division and corresponding rubric 

Question to keep in mind: What information can I share that is impartial and is a first hand account of witnessed performance (things you see or hear)?

Specific

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)

Question to keep in mind: What information can I share that is detailed enough to help the girls understand what was observed and how it impacted the score given?

Timely

Sharing feedback at their Live Pitch is a great way to provide timely feedback. Ensuring your feedback is filled out and ready to go out to teams within the week after the event will help us share feedback with teams in a timely manner. 

Question to keep in mind: How can I make sure that I review submissions and give meaningful and actionable feedback?