Critical Response Process

Critical Response Process
Jared O'Leary
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In this episode I talk about how you can use Liz Lerman’s Critical Response Process to encourage feedback and dialogue among students around the projects they create.

  • Many educators will ask their students

    to share their projects in front of a

    class or in front of the group in an

    ideal setting this can be beneficial for

    all the students involved because they

    can ask some questions and kind of

    engage in dialogue about what was

    created often what ends up happening is

    the feedback is either too critical or

    too vague or just like not very helpful

    for the person who is actually creating

    the project so what if I told you there

    was a process that you could take that

    actually make this a much better

    experience for everyone involved today's

    Short episode of the csk8 podcast is a

    little professional development session

    on a process called the critical

    response process which is created by Liz

    Lerman and you can actually find a link

    to Liz's website as well as a little

    short article that talks about these

    critical response process in the show

    notes at jaredoleery.com the critical

    response process is something that an

    entire class or a group of students and

    a teacher can engage in there are three

    roles within this process and there are

    four steps the first role is the artist

    so the artist is the person who is

    sharing their work in front of the group

    or in front of the class the second role

    is responder this could be one person or

    could be many people the responder is

    going to engage in dialogue with the

    artist and kind of ask some questions

    and give some feedback and then the

    third role as a facilitator the

    facilitator is usually the educator and

    they're going to help guide the

    discussion by providing some questions

    kind of steering things on topic so that

    way it doesn't like Veer into critique

    that is unwanted this process can take

    place at the end or completion of a

    project but I'd recommend doing this in

    process so like maybe Midway through

    students can share what they're

    currently working on and get some

    feedback from different students to do

    this there are four steps for the

    critical response process the first step

    is called statements of meaning so the

    artist is going to share their project

    like let's say a game in scratch and

    they're going to share it with the class

    and then the class is going to provide

    some feedback in the form of statements

    of meaning so the facilitator might ask

    the responders what was something that

    was interesting or surprising to you

    about this game well something that was

    very memorable or unique the goal of the

    facilitator is to give some different

    avenues that the responders can kind of

    reply to so you're basically setting

    them up with some different prompts

    while the goal is not to like provide

    affirmative responses these are

    typically pause responses like oh it

    would surprise me when this happened or

    it was really memorable when I did got

    to this part in the game Etc now step

    two on the other hand is the Artist as

    questioner so after the responders give

    some feedback based on the facilitators

    like different prompts and whatnot the

    artist can question the responders

    looking for specific feedback the

    questions that the artist could ask

    could be more general or they could be

    more targeted so they could ask

    questions like did you have fun playing

    the game or what did you think of the

    player controls and it's up to the

    artists to come up with these different

    questions however if they kind of get

    stuck the facilitator can assist by

    providing some more follow-up questions

    that the artist can ask the different

    responders in the group or in the class

    now in the third step this is the

    neutral questions from responders step

    now it's important to emphasize that

    these are neutral questions not leading

    questions and whatnot so for example a

    leading or like critical question might

    be like why did you make the game boring

    instead you could ask a neutral question

    like what kind of a Vibe were you going

    for with the game or what kind of

    difficulty level were you hoping for in

    the game so it's important to emphasize

    that these are not critiques in the form

    of questions and these are not opinion

    is phrased in the form of questions the

    artist then listens to these questions

    and they're able to respond to kind of

    give some feedback to the students who

    are the responders this is a great way

    for the responders to be able to ask

    some questions and better understand

    what the artist was creating in the

    project that they shared and the fourth

    step is the opinion time in this step

    the responders have the opportunity to

    ask the artist can I provide an opinion

    on blank and the artist is able to

    respond yes or no so the respondents can

    provide some feedback to the artist by

    asking questions like can I provide some

    opinions on your player controls and the

    artist can say yes or no to that it's

    important that they are phrased within a

    particular topic because the artist

    might listen to the the topic and go I'm

    not really actually interested in

    talking about a b or c what I am

    interested in talking about is X Y and Z

    does anyone have any questions or

    opinions on those areas so for example I

    recently created a vlog of a trip that

    my wife and I took to Hawaii and when

    people would watch it they're like it

    was great I really love the editing well

    I really appreciated the kind words I

    had some very specific questions like oh

    what did you think about this transition

    or what did you think about the pacing

    in this section and so I was able to get

    some feedback that like helped me

    understand how people received the edits

    that I made that to me was very helpful

    rather than just like generic I liked

    your game or I didn't like your game Etc

    which typically is what happens when

    students are giving feedback to each

    other so as a quick summary again there

    are three different roles there's the

    artist the responder and the facilitator

    to do the critical response process

    there are four steps Step One is the

    statements of meaning step two is the

    artist's questioner step three is

    neutral questions and step four is

    opinion time now this again is something

    that you can do in small groups this is

    something that you can do in a full

    class setting and it's one of the many

    ways that you can actually engage in an

    assessment process with students one of

    the other ways that I like to engage in

    this is like my class was split up in

    half so that one half of the room would

    go to the other side of the room and

    they'd ask some questions of the person

    who is sharing their in-process project

    then the next day the other half will go

    to the other side of the room and they

    would ask some questions on the projects

    that way students were just like

    constantly getting feedback from each

    other every other day in class in order

    to help advancer projects of their in

    process projects that they are working

    on my students had the opportunity to

    work on projects over the course of like

    a couple of days weeks months and some

    even spent multiple years on it because

    they didn't have to turn in anything in

    time all their grades were based off of

    whether or not they were actually just

    working on something in the class not

    whether or not they completed something

    some students worked on projects for

    multiple years and so they had multiple

    years of getting feedback from different

    students and refining like a video game

    in that case other students just spent

    like a week on it so they got like a

    feedback Midway through their project

    and then they're like cool I'm good done

    with this one now I'm going to work on

    another project there are many ways that

    you can do assessment in classes and

    there are many different types of

    questions that students might be able to

    ask each other there are multiple

    episodes that actually Focus

    specifically on different question types

    that you can ask and I do link to those

    in the show notes at jaredolary.com so

    if you decide to try this out in your

    classroom I highly recommend listening

    to those other episodes because it can

    provide some helpful prompts that you

    can put up on the board because students

    don't always have like feedback

    processes modeled for them this might

    require you to practice this by sharing

    your own work as an artist and having

    students asking you different questions

    and prompts that you provide for them if

    you model this enough over the course of

    multiple weeks or months then students

    might be able to actually do this

    independently without having critiques

    in the form of questions etc etc so

    although the critical response process

    is fairly easy it does take some like

    practice and some refinement for

    students to get used to it because they

    might not have done something like this

    in their classrooms and eventually you

    can get to the point where you can do it

    again what I would do is just one half

    go to the other side of the room provide

    some feedback on the projects they're

    seeing and then the next day you flip it

    so the other half goes the other side so

    this becomes a normal part of the daily

    routine where students are sharing in

    process works and getting feedback from

    their peers last week's episode which

    was episode 192 titled how to get

    started with Computer Science Education

    provides a framework for being able to

    learn how to teach Computer Science

    Education without having to pay any

    money as I mentioned in that podcast I'm

    more than happy to provide some

    responses to some questions you might

    have if you leave them in the YouTube

    comments and I can elaborate on on

    different teaching pedagogies Etc so for

    example this episode talks about how you

    can have students provide feedback to

    each other but I'm more than happy to

    talk about some other processes that I

    engage with in the classroom like how

    did I facilitate several different

    programming languages all in the same

    space if you're interested in something

    like that let me know because there are

    over 100 hours of podcast episodes I

    know that there's something and then

    that's going to be useful for you or

    somebody else so that you know so I just

    ask that you share your favorite content

    with a friend co-worker or just at large

    on social media just helps more people

    find the content but if you have a

    question for me that you'd like me to

    explore feel free to leave it in YouTube

    comment but stay tuned next week for

    another episode until then I hope you're

    all staying safe and are having a

    wonderful week

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