You may have noticed that most of my feedback assesses your work, instead of praising or criticizing. You might see phrases like "thoughtful and complete", or "I see a successful attempt..." or "I do not see where you applied the rubric". Notice how these phrases do not offer praise (good job!) or judgment (you did this wrong). There is a difference between assessing and evaluation. Assessing is comparing a work to see if objectives of the task were met. Ex. I see how you applied content but I do not see evidence of analysis. This approach emphasizes a growth mindset, where a learner can see gaps in their knowledge or skills and work to enhance. Evaluation emphasizes right/wrong and good/bad which can actually interfere with real learning. The research that has been done regarding praise is that praise can actually interfere with learning. For many of you who have learned about developing self-esteem and most likely were praised often in school and other contexts, this may not make sense. Being nice and telling people nice things about themselves is a good thing, right? Yes, yes in terms of developing relationships with others, but that was not the objective in this case. Here is a podcast from NPR's Hidden Brain explaining the science behind this. You can either read the transcript or listen. If you have time constraints, I would recommend skipping forward to the part about visiting the medical college.

https://www.npr.org/transcripts/616127481