Teaching technique

When I have been checking student's work in the simulation clinic, most of them are expecting me to have a look and give my feedback straight away. Instead, what I have found useful is before even looking down at it, asking the following:

-What are you up to?

-How did you go? (any difficulties?)

-How is it? 

-What do you need to do to make it better?

I find from these questions that there is a spectrum and some students are over confident of their abilities, some have an accurate appraisal of their skills and some lack confidence but are not doing too bad.

I think these questions are useful to develop their self critical skills as it is important for them to be self sufficient in appraising their own work. They need to be able to visualise what they want the work to look like and be able to figure out if and why their own work departs from the ideal. Only then will I look at their work and give my feedback.