teachers giving and taking feedback

Students want to be given feedback about their performance - because feedback is about performing better next time:

Jay Doubleyou: students want feedback

Jay Doubleyou: students want feedback part 2

Teachers can give feedback in different ways of course:

Jay Doubleyou: coaching v mentoring: what works best for teachers?

Teachers also want to perform better:

Jay Doubleyou: demand-high teaching

And this also means getting some good feedback:

Feedback can be one of the most valuable tools throughout education. That is, if it is done properly! As wonderful as it is to be given a good grade for a piece of work; without feedback pointing to what exactly you did well, the grade has no impact on your future work. On the other hand, if you had issues while carrying out a task; appropriate feedback can help you to realise your mistakes and build on your weaknesses so that you are more likely to succeed next time.

While mulling this over in my head, I watched this TED talk about feedback for teachers. Its focus is on America but has key messages which are international: Bill Gates: Teachers need real feedback | TED Talk

The key points that I took from this video are:

• No-one can become truly skilled at their role without feedback from others
• the best performing countries have formal feedback systems
• successful systems involve younger teachers getting a chance to watch master teachers at work
• Self evaluation is also a useful form of feedback, as seen in the demonstration of a teacher recording herself in classroom and using it to reflect

The idea of some teachers receiving one word feedback (“Satisfactory”) ties in with my earlier thoughts about a grade being meaningless without explanation. In order for us as teachers to develop and improve, we need to be: encouraged, through identification of our strengths and appreciation of our efforts and also challenged, through suggestions of improvements or introduction to new ways of approaching a problem.

Fabulous Feedback | Reflections of a Trainee Teacher – @EarlyYearsIdeas

But so often, feedback feels like criticism - but it doesn't have to be: - as the tips in this piece show:

You've just finished your lesson and you felt it was really successful. Everyone was engaged and it felt like learners were all in the flow. As a good practitioner, to check if your own views on the lesson correspond with your learners’, you ask everyone in class to give you some feedback on their way out on a sticky note. Back in the teacher’s room you quickly scan through the stickies filled with learners’ comments and the feedback overall is super positive: “I enjoyed the activity”, “I learnt how to self-correct my writing”, “it was cool to team-write.” But there is one different comment “I didn’t learn anything and your lesson was boring.” Whilst your colleagues tell you to ignore that it, for some reason on your way home only that one negative comment keeps spinning around in your head…. even though there were 25 positive ones! Does this sound familiar?

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Why do negative comments stick? | MET

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