Went through some professional development activities on Monday. The purpose was to discuss data from our latest Instructional Round protocol. The staff concluded that our next steps needed to revolve around feedback in the classroom.
I spent some time thinking about feedback the next couple of days. I found myself thing about feedback watching football on TV, cooking dinner and was even thinking about feedback in the shower earlier this morning. During the Instruction Round discussion the Fine Arts staff and I were talking about how athletic coaches and performance teachers provide feedback to individuals, small groups, and whole group pretty much all the time. It struck me while I was in the shower this morning; those teachers can provide this feedback because their students are actually doing something.
Those students are actually engaged in a performance. In athletics the athletes are working on a tackling progression individually or small group and the athletic coaches are providing verbal feedback every few seconds. In half line, position coaches are watching the athletes perform and after the play, give corrective feedback and then the athletes line up and do it again and the coaches give feedback again. During team drills same thing. Athletes perform, coaches correct, next play occurs and subsequently, more coaching/feedback. Performance teachers in the Fine Arts programs provide the same timely feedback. Band gets feedback every few seconds. Individual students get feedback on correct posture and arm positioning. Small groups of brass players get advice on breathing techniques. The brass group plays a segment and the teacher offers feedback and the students will resubmit the performance and some extraordinary happens: learning. In the whole group setting you have periodic sound checks, ect.. The point is they receive feedback on a continual basis because their students are constantly performing and incorporating the feedback into the performance.
But what about in core classes? Do we see the same student performances and subsequent feedback?
Had a Professional Learning Committee meeting this morning at school with our social studies department. The discussion of Standards Based Bulleting Boards 'squirreled' into a discussion on feedback and more specifically verbal feedback. (other types of feedback: written to individuals, small group, and whole group from both peers and teachers). What is the best way to document verbal feedback? How strong of a correlation does teacher questioning have with verbal feedback? If only four students get to respond to teacher questions, what do the remaining students do? Most are not paying attention. What if we ask students to respond in a Netschool forum or Twitter or even Todaysmeet? I would like to assume that we would get greater participation and collaboration and mastery of the learning target.
Verbal or Written Feedback: When and How to use them correctly.
I would argue that verbal feedback is most common, probably because of time constraints. Its much easier to address a student performance with, "Johnny, I like the way you constructed the model of diatomachious earth, now do this...here is your score." Written feedback I believe would require teachers to either take more student work home to provide the requisite feedback or require teachers to provide feedback during class. If the choice were to provide feedback during class that would require the teacher to no longer become a sage on the stage but rather more of a facilitator of learning....
Pretty much stop reading here. This other stuff is notes from other discussions with SS PLC.
Generalization and not names and dates. Social studies has historically been a lecture style classroom. No student performance there. No way to provide feedback. Discussed causes of War of 1812. These causes are not different than the causes of any other war. See teacher generalizations. Emphasis on DBQ and critical reading and writing. More synthesis of data and formulation of ideology. Comment on recent PD with Southlake teacher and College Board. Example of student performance of Renaissance Era and students becoming experts on topic and write short analysis of topic, but are not allowed to learn on the rest of era. I commented on presentations and reflection/analysis and have student reflect on relevancy. This type of performance can be feedback worthy. A critique/analysis of some type.
Performance Process...English SBBB in 6th grade hall. Student rough draft is posted along with student reflections in the margins of draft (is student reflection considered feedback???) Commentary of peer and teacher is posted to the right of the draft and then the final copy is posted. This is a learning process. What if we add the feedback in the middle (between draft and final copy)? We can see the growth added and how a student used the feedback to improve their performance. What does PBL (problem based learning) and rubrics play in this? English teachers are piloting a final exam using PBL (see Bjornberg and Driver).
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