Giving Feedback That Actually Improves Candidate Teaching

"Good job, just work on your pacing" is the kind of feedback that gets nodded at and immediately forgotten, because it gives the candidate nothing concrete to actually change. Watch enough IDCs and you'll notice that the candidates who improve fastest aren't necessarily the most talented ones, they're the ones lucky enough to be paired with a Course Director or Staff Instructor who gives feedback that's specific enough to act on. That's a coachable skill in itself, and it's worth being deliberate about.

Vague praise and vague criticism are equally useless

It's tempting to soften feedback with general encouragement, "that was really good overall," but vague positive feedback teaches a candidate nothing about which specific choices worked, so they can't reliably repeat them. The fix isn't to be harsher, it's to be more specific in both directions: "your pause before asking the group a question gave everyone time to actually think, keep doing exactly that" is feedback a candidate can consciously repeat. "Good job" is not.

Anchor feedback to a specific, observable moment

The most useful feedback references an exact moment rather than a general impression: "at the two-minute mark, when you demonstrated mask clearing, you were still facing slightly away from two of the four students" is something a candidate can picture and correct. "Your demonstration positioning needs work" is a category, not a correctable instance. Course Directors who take brief notes during a presentation, timestamped or sequenced, give noticeably more useful debriefs than those relying on general post-hoc impressions.

Separate the skill from the person

Candidates under IDC pressure are often already anxious about their own competence, and feedback that reads as a judgement of the person rather than a specific, fixable choice tends to trigger defensiveness rather than genuine listening. Framing feedback around the choice, "when you chose to demonstrate that skill from the side rather than head-on," rather than the person, "you're not good at positioning yet," keeps the candidate's attention on the fixable behaviour instead of on defending their own competence.

Give one priority, not five

A thorough Course Director can often find six or seven things worth improving in any single presentation. Listing all of them at once overwhelms a candidate who's already processing the adrenaline of having just finished teaching under evaluation. Strong feedback picks the single change that will have the biggest impact on the next presentation and focuses there, trusting that other, smaller issues can be addressed in subsequent sessions rather than all at once.

Close the loop on the next attempt

Feedback that's never revisited teaches candidates that the debrief was a formality rather than something to actually act on. Strong mentors explicitly reference the previous feedback point at the start of the next presentation, "let's specifically watch your positioning again this time," which signals that feedback is expected to change behaviour, not just be heard and filed away.

This is a skill worth building deliberately

Giving feedback this way doesn't come naturally to everyone, and it's a core part of what the IDC Staff Instructor role is meant to develop. It's also a skill that continues to matter well beyond candidate training, in mentoring new instructors, in running staff development through programs like the Advanced Training Academy, and in every confined water session run for an IDC candidate learning to give this same kind of feedback themselves.

If you're preparing to take on more of a coaching role in instructor training, our team is happy to talk through the path that fits your experience.