How to Reduce Students’ Anxiety About Peer Feedback in Project-Based Learning

Critique and revision are important elements of project-based learning and essential life skills that lead to success once they are mastered. When publications like Forbes produce their annual list of the most desirable skills employers look for, the ability to use feedback to improve the quality of work or performance is almost always in the top three. Yet frequently, the teachers that I work with also cite this skill as one of the most difficult to get students to buy into.

I’ve heard many reasons about why teachers encounter such difficulty when they have students engage with feedback protocols. Getting students to dedicate additional time to improving upon work that they’ve just completed can be tricky. Coaching students, especially early childhood learners, to give useful feedback that goes beyond “Wow, that’s good” or “Ew, that sucks” is also difficult. But something that I hear over and over again from the teachers of older students is the amount of anxiety that comes with the process of peer feedback.

Regardless of the fact that feedback is never about the person—only improving the work being presented—many students see any kind of criticism as personal in nature. This could result in their not wanting to give it because of potential social ramifications or being unwilling to receive it because it makes them feel like their initial efforts haven’t amounted to much.

What follows are some tried-and-true tips on how to help even the most anxious of students warm up to the idea of peer feedback.

1. Give it Early, Give it Often

A common mistake that leads to resistance when it comes to feedback is when in the project process the feedback comes. If it’s too late in the project process, getting feedback that suggests big changes or calls for major adjustments is going to feel like gotcha moments, leaving students wondering why, if there were so many problems with their work, they didn’t hear about them earlier.

For this reason, you’ll want to insert opportunities for feedback throughout the project process, preferably before the submission of major project components. That way, students are able to make smaller adjustments over longer periods of time that add up to excellent work.

2. Frame Feedback as a Gift

There are three main phases in a feedback process: framing of the focus of the feedback, providing it, and a third often skipped phase of reflecting on the received feedback. I always suggest to teachers that it’s important to remind students that just because somebody gives them a suggestion doesn’t mean that it has to be acted on—as long as they can substantiate why it’s not in the best interest of their work.

If somebody points out that a student needs to add a period to the end of a sentence, that’s pretty cut-and-dried. If somebody says that they need to rewrite their entire thesis, that’s more nuanced and requires reflection. This process more accurately reflects the true nature of feedback, and also provides students an out if they feel like there is just too much criticism being leveled at them.

3. Students Should Select What to Implement

Always provide a way for students to pick and choose the feedback they act on and the feedback that they decide to dismiss. A good way to set the stage is to tell them that feedback is like a gift from grandma. There are some gifts that you keep, and then there are some gifts that get returned.

However, you’re always grateful when you get a gift from grandma and you would never hurt her feelings by rejecting one, even if she gives you another itchy sweater. It’s given with the best intentions in mind. Students can approach feedback in the same way. Feedback should be helpful—providing specific useful suggestions or ideas that students could implement. It should also be reciprocated. If they give it, they should also have a chance to receive it.

4. Them Versus You

If you happen to have a class with a bit of a competitive streak, you might consider framing feedback as a contest between the students and the teacher. One of the purposes of your feedback is to identify opportunities that students might miss on their own that could result in deductions toward a final grade.

With this in mind, you could frame the feedback process as a way for students to work together to find all the reasons why the teacher might deduct points from the work. This might be more antagonistic than the culture you’re trying to create around feedback, but the opportunity to “outsmart” the teacher can be a powerful motivator for some students.

5. Use Hidden or Public Comments

A lot of what is best when it comes to framing and designing opportunities for feedback is built upon the culture of the classroom that it takes place in. If you know you’re in a space or with students who aren’t used to or comfortable with getting critique from their peers, you’ll want to make sure that the feedback is less public. For example, try using the backside of a sticky note or write down suggestions on slips of paper and put them into an envelope so that you can obscure comments that might be seen as too critical.

Another option is to have one class give feedback to students in another period as a way of making feedback less prominent. On the flip side, too much secrecy lends itself to the potential for mean comments to be made. As such, you may want to make it more public or add more accountability. Having students write comments directly on work or posters with uniquely colored markers so that comments are linked to a specific student may be a better route.

The importance of receiving and adopting feedback is such that we owe it to our students to make sure that by the time they complete their K–12 education, they have made progress with this crucial tool of self-improvement.