Exhibit: Peer-editing portfolio exercise

Benchmark: Teamwork/Communication

Skill: TC106-Give and accept feedback in a positive way

            Everyone is proud of the work the put there name on. Even though it may be your best work, no one is perfect. Being able to accept feedback in a positive way is important because something that someone may suggest can possibly add to, not take away from your idea. A lot of the time, ideas that are suggested could be ideas that are out of the box that you may not have thought of yourself. Feedback can be given on many different subjects and tasks. I am a somewhat stubborn person and even though I often do things my own way, I am always open to new things. An example of my open-mindedness would be when my papers are peer edited in my dental class. In total, I receive one full credit of English. Every Tuesday the entire class is on their computers typing specific papers for our portfolio. My teacher, Karen Bollheimer, RDH, BA, is not certified to teach English so we have a teacher that comes to us every week on Tuesday at noon until one o’clock.

            During this period of time, I am given a rubric of which contains what my portfolio should include. Before each student prints their final papers they must be looked over and reviewed. I often had little to fix but the feedback I was given was helpful. At the end of the year as a large portion of your grade you are required to turn in your finished product. I am proud of the grade I earned because creating this portfolio that contained a lot of my hard work, heavily researched information and also time was an achievement and with this portfolio, I can use it during an interview with a dental office.

            Not only did I receive feedback on my work, I gave positive feedback to my fellow peers. We often were required to review each other’s work and give advice on ways to improve the overall quality of their work. Not only would I correct grammatical errors and fragments but I would write positive feedback such as “I like your word choice here” or “good job/ good point.” This gives the writer a sense of accomplishment and makes them more likely to make minor corrections I’ve suggested because I haven’t dissected and torn their work apart.

            Being able to accept feedback and give positive feedback to your peers is important because it allows praising good work and helping a student improve their overall writing skills. In dentistry, being able to give and accept feedback in a positive way is big. When working on a patient, if they are uncomfortable, which is common, they may say things they don’t necessarily mean such as “Ouch!!! That hurts” or they may say something that is not particularly nice. It is your job as a healthcare worker to understand your patient is in pain and you must only respond with kindness and empathy. As a young adult, I will be in college and my classroom papers will often be peer edited, it is important to allow changes in your work in order to create something that will be even better. In clinical, I will be working on other people so it is important to be able to accept negative and positive feedback while I am learning and getting used to working on a patients mouth.