Asset-based student feedback and employee engagement

“I See You. I Care. How Can I Help You Grow?” That was the title of a recent article that described the importance of "culturally responsive, asset-based feedback to support students’ learning in the COVID-19 era."

"Asset-based framing," as Trabian Shorters puts it, "defines communities [and individuals] by their aspirations and contributions, rather than their challenges and deficits." Shorters describes the concept and his own experience with it in this interview. Former Utah Congresswoman Mia Love seemed to speak of asset-based framing when she recently talked about the difference between "being treated like a liability to be managed instead of a person with unlimited human potential."

Patrick Lencioni, in the book, The Truth About Employee Engagement, states that employees need three things to feel engaged at work: to be known as individuals, to know what they do matters to someone else, and to have a way to know if they're succeeding.

One of the amazing possibilities in blended or fully online education environments is regular one on one check-ins with individual students. Such check-ins, whether with employees or students, are excellent opportunities to ensure people are known as individuals, understand how their effort can or will make a difference in the world (even for themselves), and to gauge whether they're being successful.

Now watch the video of Ms. Nolan's conversation with one of her students, Israel, and think about what you can do to connect with, affirm, and encourage a young person or colleague to grow.