Critical Response Process
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.
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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
Resources/Links Relevant to This Episode
Other podcast episodes that were mentioned or are relevant to this episode
Assessment Considerations: A Simple Heuristic
In this episode I read and unpack my (2019) publication titled “Assessment Considerations: A Simple Heuristic,” which is intended to serve as a heuristic for creating or selecting an assessment.
Educational Aims, Objectives, and Other Aspirations
In this episode I unpack Eisner’s (2002) publication titled “Educational aims, objectives, and other aspirations,” which problematizes behavioral education objectives and discuss two alternative approaches.
How to Get Started with Computer Science Education
In this episode I provide a framework for how districts and educators can get started with computer science education for free.
Individualized Learning Without Grades with Sofía De Jesús
In this interview with Sofía De Jesús, we discuss Sofía’s book (Applied Computational Thinking with Python: Design algorithmic solutions for complex and challenging real-world problems), the importance of bringing your full self into the classroom, designing for equity and inclusion, working with individuals one-on-one rather than teaching to group averages, problematizing grades in education, collaborating with educators, and much more.
In this episode I unpack Bowler and Champagne’s (2009) publication titled “Mindful makers: Question prompts to help guide young peoples' critical technical practices in maker spaces in libraries, museums, and community-based youth organizations,” which "examines question prompts as a means to scaffold reflection and reflexivity in the design, development, and use of technological artifacts in maker spaces for youth at public libraries, museums, and community-based organizations" (abstract).
Rethinking the Roles of Assessment in [Computer Science] Education
In this episode I unpack Scott’s (2012) publication titled “Rethinking the roles of assessment in music education,” which summarizes three roles of assessment (assessment of learning, assessment for learning, and assessment as learning) that I discuss in relation to computer science education.
Talking About [Computer Science]: Better Questions? Better Discussions!
In this episode I unpack Allsup and Baxter’s (2004) publication titled “Talking about music: Better questions? Better discussions!” which is a short article that discusses open, guided, and closed questions, as well as a framework for encouraging critical thinking through questions. Although this article is published in a music education journal, I discuss potential implications for computer science educators.
Using Questions That Guide Mathematical Thinking to Think Computationally
In this episode I discuss some example questions we can ask to encourage kids to think deeper about computer science and computational thinking by unpacking two papers on using guiding questions in mathematics education. The first paper paper by Way (2014) is titled “Using questioning to stimulate mathematical thinking” and the second paper by Pennant (2018) is titled “Developing a classroom culture that supports a problem-solving approach to mathematics.”
Learn more about the Critical Response Process on Liz Lerman’s website
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