Light Receiving Feedback

Light Receiving Feedback

How important is feedback?

Does feedback help us learn with the objective to do better and be better than we were the day before?

In an article titled, Giving Effective Feedback, Mckimm (2009) shares, “Feedback is a vital part of education and training which, if carried out well, helps motivate and develop learners’ knowledge, skills and behaviors. It helps learners to maximize their potential and professional development at different stages of training, raise their awareness of strengths and areas for improvement, and identify actions to be taken to improve performance” (p. 158).

For almost a year, I have actively engaged in the learning process of creating my personal website, Friendly Light, Cara Lucia and writing a blog post every Friday. After this Friday, I have six more blog posts to write and then it will be a full year of writing for Friendly Light, Cara Lucia. When I read the article by McKimm (2009), I felt encouraged to ask for feedback about my past year’s work with Friendly Light.

Feedback is formal and informal. McKimm (2009) describes attributes of both formal and informal feedback in her article, here are a few that stand out to me in regards to the context of feedback for my website and blog.

Formal Feedback:

• Identify, analyze, and explore solutions to potential areas that need more development and growth; do this by providing specific examples
• Reinforce what is done well and provide specific examples
• Share ideas for additional learning in areas that need development

Informal Feedback:

• Reinforce good practice and competence as it is happening, for example write after a blog is posted
• Raise awareness of areas that are weak or are bad habits
• Negative feedback should be specific and non-judgmental

The above are only a few examples of formal and informal feedback. My hope is this generates ideas about how to go about giving feedback.

I am asking for feedback from you. I understand that some will be positive and negative – that’s great. I am hoping to do better and be better each day. I am opening the gate to contact me or to leave a comment below.

Here are some starter questions:

• What am I doing well with the Friendly Light website and blog?
• What do I need to develop or learn to enhance the capacity for what Friendly Light can offer?
• Are there new ideas I should consider (podcast, social media presence, what else?)
• In relation to the blog post was there one or a collection of posts that you connected most with?
• What am I not considering?

Thank you for your support and for challenging me to do better and be better. I look forward to hearing from you.


“We all need people who will give us feedback. That’s how we improve.” - Bill Gates