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Copy file name to clipboardExpand all lines: mentoring/how_to_give_great_feedback.md
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# How to give great feedback
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At this stage you should have chosen a solution to mentor.
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If you've not, work your way through [Choosing a solution to mentor](./choosing-a-solution) first, then come back here.
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If you haven't, work your way through [Choosing a solution to mentor](./choosing-a-solution) first, then come back here.
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## Your first feedback
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You're now about to give your first feedback to a student.
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You're about to give your first feedback to a student.
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This can be exciting but also pretty daunting.
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A lot of (the best!) mentors suffer from [Impostor Syndrome](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome) at this stage, and give up before they start.
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If you feel like that, it's totally understandable, but also almost always unnecessary.
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However, one of the key values of mentoring on Exercism is that mentors can help students discover ideas they had no idea about.
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So you might look at a student's solution, read their comment which asks if there are any tweaks they could make, and think "Wow - you really don't have a grasp on this exercise at all".
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It might be that they've totally missed the point of the exercise.
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In your time as a mentor, you'll see some incredibly "overfit" solutons where students make the tests pass but totally miss the point of the challenge.
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In your time as a mentor, you'll see some incredibly "overfit" solutions where students make the tests pass but totally miss the point of the challenge.
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Or see incredibly complex solutions that can be rewritten in a couple of lines of code.
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Your job as a mentor is to help take the student forward **from where they start**.
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What's the biggest thing you could do to help unlock an idea or unblock your thinking?
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What's the biggest thing you could do to help unlock an idea or unblock their thinking?
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You'll find that if you can explain an idea to a student and set a lightbulb off in their head, it'll be an incredibly rewarding discussion.
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## Don't just give the solution away
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As a general rule, aim for somewhere between the two.
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Ensure that you tell the student enough that they can understand what they should try, but try not to just give them the answer and tell them why it works.
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For example, let's imagine you see an `if` statement in Ruby that would be much more nicely written using the [ternary operator](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%3F:):
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For example, imagine you see an `if` statement in Ruby that would be much more nicely written using the [ternary operator](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%3F:):
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```
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# Student's code
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b = a ? 1 : 2
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```
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You could just say "Write `b = a ? 1 : 2` instead of the `if` statement on L10.
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You could just say "Write `b = a ? 1 : 2` instead of the `if` statement on L10."
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But that wouldn't be helping a student understand the why or have a lightbulb moment of their own.
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Instead it would be much better to introduce the idea of a ternary, and pose the student a challenge.
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## Unsure of something? Chat to other mentors?
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One of the best things about being an Exercism mentor, is the community of other mentors you can learn from.
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If you've got a question about a solution, or just want to bounce ideas with other mentors, jump into our [Slack Room]() and ask away!
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One of the best things about being an Exercism mentor is the community of other mentors you can learn from.
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If you've got a question about a solution, or just want to bounce ideas with other mentors, jump into our [Slack Workspace]() and ask away!
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You'll probably find people you can help there too 🙂
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