Welcome to Edgy Tips, a side project of the Cult of Pedagogy podcast where I share one quick idea to make your teaching better.

This is Jennifer Gonzalez and I am your host.

This Edgy Tip is sponsored by Stash 101.

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Today's Edgy Tip is replace general praise with something specific.

While we go about our days interacting with students, we're constantly watching the things they do and oftentimes we feel the urge to give them some sort of feedback.

Some of the most powerful feedback is the positive kind.

Positive feedback helps students know they're on the right track, it helps push them to keep going.

The thing is, not all praise is created equal.

When we say something generic like good job, it might make the student feel good, but that's about it, because the student doesn't know exactly what they did right.

They might be able to guess, but they don't know for sure. And if you say good job to an entire class, then no one really knows what they did well, or even if you're talking about them.

These kinds of compliments don't really do any significant damage, and it could be argued that they're better than nothing, but we could be doing so much better.

What has a lot more impact is specific praise given to individual people.

Suppose Nathan is a student who tends to get off track easily in class, and usually needs to be redirected several times every class period to get back to work.

One day you give students an assignment, and he starts right away, staying on task for 10 full minutes without looking around, getting out of his seat, or striking up a conversation with a neighbor.

If you just walked by and said good job Nathan, that's not going to be nearly as powerful as saying you're really sticking with your work today Nathan, or even great focus this morning Nathan.

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