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TOPIC : Feedback

Lesson Element .1: AIntroduction: What is Feedback?@

Feedback Is the Information Which a Teacher Gathers from His/her Students That Informs the Teacher How Well the Class Is Responding to the Lessons.

Feedback is vital. The teacher must gather and interpret it in order to modify teaching methods and content to best suit the capacity of the students.

There are various forms of feedback.

Homework assignments, test scores, student discussions, and parent interviews all provide direct feedback.

Student eye contact, facial expressions and body language are subtle indirect feedback.

Reinforcement Is Information Given to the Students on How Well They Are Performing or on the Quality of Their Thinking and Behavior.

It reinforces positive progress or provides students with the information they need to make changes in their thinking or behavior.

Lesson Element .2: AFeedback in Large Groups@

How Do You Give Individual Attention to Kids in Classes of Thirty?

Individual attention is an unreasonable expectation of the students.

However the teacher can=t simply rationalize the size of the class as an excuse to not give some individual attention.

Teachers should try to find ways to help individuals.

Perhaps not to the degree that they would like, but some is better than none.

If there is a special need, focus special attention on the individual displaying the need.

How do you do this in a large group?

The Major Weapon is Feedback.

The answer to almost any classroom problem is to learn to read clues from your students.

If you know what is going on you are in a better position to avoid potential problems.

Methods of Feedback:

Eye contact: Try to establish this with every single individual in the room.

Review questions: It checks what they have learned and also provides feedback in terms of what they are thinking about.

Testing: An important form of feedback, it unfortunately is often administered too late to correct problems once they have been noted.

Informal Contact: Talk to the students both before and after class.

Individual Conferences & Parent Conferences: It=s very useful to talk to the parents. What the student is hearing and telling the parents may not be accurate. Talking to the parents shows that you care and can help clear up misunderstandings.

Sampling: Sampling can be done by simply talking to people in the hall, before class, etc. It provides you with a Asnap-shot@ of attitudes.

Be careful with the data: It may not be a true representation of the cross section of your students. You may end up talking only to those who are very happy or very unhappy.

Become nervous if your sampling doesn=t include most everyone.

Demographic Information: In every class there is usually a mix of traditional and non-traditional students.

You need to treat the non-traditional students differently.

Make sure you include examples that single and working fathers and mothers, and older students can relate to. If you don=t, they won=t feel like part of the class.

Lesson Element .3: AFeedback for Individuals@

Student Initiative Shows that the Students are Engaged in the Topic of Study.

Reports from Other Teachers Can Be Useful, But Also Problematic.

Some people hold that other teacher=s reports can stereotype the way you respond to your students.

Each student should have the opportunity to start a relationship with a new teacher, with a blank slate.

Dr. Allen believes that the reports are useful and should be used. He wants all the information he can get. But you should allow a student to escape the stereotype.

Access to Individual Student Records is One of the Most Powerful Kinds of Individual Feedback.

You can look at individual records and a combination of other records to get a group file.

Having this information places the teacher in a much better position to make judgements.

If You Know Your Students, You Can Do a Much Better Job Teaching Because You Can Tailor the Lessons to the Individual Circumstances of Your Students.

You must rely both on group and individual feedback.

Lesson Element .4: AModifying Instruction Based on Feedback@

Modifying Your Instruction Based on Feedback is Not Simple.

It may appear that the students aren=t getting it now, but next week they will.

You must be sophisticated in the way you use the feedback to modify your instruction.

One Method is Comprehensive Student Monitoring.

The stereotype of learning is that you start from nothing and by the end of the course the students have learned everything at a steady rate. This stereotype is wrong.

Stanford Experiment:

French teacher gave weekly final exams to see how well the students mastered the material as it was being taught to them.
Expected everyone to do poorly at first and then gradually do better and better.
Experiment was a disaster. Three students got A=s on the first exam. They already knew the material and the teacher couldn=t take any credit for teaching them.
However, this first test formed a baseline.
In the second week, the scores went down. The same with the next two weeks. It appeared that the students were unlearning things!
The next week the scores went up and continued to climb until by the ninth week, the scores were higher than had been predicted.
The bottom line: performance may go down as the students struggle to learn new skills. This is not an unusual learning curve.

Another learning curve describes the perversity of potential learning curves for individual students.

You teach and nothing happens, and then all of a sudden they get it.
If the final exam comes in the ideal spot, right after all the students have mastered the material, all is well.
If it comes too late, time has been wasted where the student=s aren=t learning anything.
If the final exam comes too early, it=s a huge disaster.

Where the final exam comes in the learning curve is an absolutely crucial part of the learning process.

Feedback is vital because interpreting it in a professional way will inform the teacher where the students are in the learning curves, and thus ensure that testing is done properly.

Lesson Element .5: AEvaluating Feedback@

Learning to Evaluate the Collected Feedback Takes Practice.

You need to time your response so that you don=t react too early.

Your evidence says they aren=t learning anything, but your chart shows a flat learning curve.
If you don=t do anything different from what you are doing then they will eventually get it.
But if the curve is all over the place, you need to do something about it before it gets worse. You revise your instruction.

You Have to Be Willing to Make Individual Exceptions as You Evaluate Student Feedback.

Teachers often become victims of their own rules.

They make the rules and then follow them even when it=s not sensible.

You Need to Have a Reputation for Making the Rules, but Also the Wisdom to Break the Rules When You Have a Good Reason for Breaking Them.

Let people know there are exceptions.

Example:

A student disputes an answer and it turns out to be an error on your part. The question or answer is flawed. Give everyone credit for the question.
If the same student esoterically proves their answer correct, give credit to that student only, not the group. The student was the only one who used a legitimate thinking process to arrive at that answer, not the group.
That is an individual exception. Not normally announced in class, but not kept secret either.

You Run the Class; Don=t Let Your Rules Run the Class.

As the teacher, you must put yourself in a position to legitimately break your own rules.

Lesson Element .6: AFeedback and Retention@

How Long Do People Remember What They Have Been Taught?

We tend to use short-term memorization rather than long-term retention.

Students cram for a test and then promptly forget everything.

You must define a reasonable retention goal.

How much of what you are teaching should the students learn?
How much of what they learn can you expect them to retain and for how long?

Most retention is unmeasurable.

You often never know what you=ve done that was effective because retention is only demonstrated by observing how students use the information they=ve learned in your classroom.

Students use the information they=ve learned in their own way.

One of the Most Important Issue of Education Reform Is How to Revise Instruction to Emphasize Long-term Retention.

Lesson Element .7: AKnow Your Students@

Take Appropriate Interest In Your Students.

This can be tough because society is suspicious.

Some teachers have engage in child abuse and this make society suspicious of teacher motives.
The abuse doesn=t happen very often, but when it occurs, society is outraged.

The teacher has to be a strong role model.

The teacher must be a friend, a confidant, and provide a reality check for the students.

The teacher must also realize that there are going to be times and circumstances that can be misunderstood.

There are some schools where teachers don=t feel free to touch the kids.

Dr. Allen doesn=t agree with this.

Dr. Allen believes that teachers need to touch kids, but such touches should be appropriate.

Never Promise a Student That What They Say is Confidential.

Don=t put yourself in a position in which you are told something you cannot share.

Tell the students that when they tell you something personal, they can be sure that you will respond in what you feel is their best interests.

This allows you the latitude to make a judgement call.

Teachers do not have confidential relationships like lawyers or ministers.

Your relationship with your students is a public relationship in the legal sense of the word.

Avoid Giving Kids Advice on How to Deal With Their Parents.

You put yourself on shaky ground.

Never tell students anything about dealing with their parents that you are not ready for them to repeat.

Adolescence is a Very Intense Time.

Everything that happens seems larger than life to the adolescent.

You could tell them you don=t want to hear anything about their girlfriend/boyfriend troubles.

Dr. Allen doesn=t recommend that approach. He believes you should listen and empathize.

Blurring the Lines Between Personal and Professional Relationships Is Dangerous.

Be careful, but don=t exclude the students.

You will get to know some students better than you will get to know others.
You will deal with some students differently than you will deal with others.
You will grade some students differently than you will grade others.
All these exceptions are appropriate if they are done in a professional manner.

Lesson Element .8: AAbstract: Feedback and Reinforcement@

Every Student Is Unique, and a Good Teacher Is One Who Can Discern Differences Between Students and Respond to Each Student Individually.

Learning who your students are, and how best to instruct them, is done by gathering and analyzing feedback.

Accurate and adequate feedback can help the teacher adjust their approach to teaching.

This helps maintain order in the classroom and maximizes the effect of the lesson.

Feedback Comes in as Many Forms as the Attentive Teacher Is Able to Gather it In.

These forms include:

Eye contact and personal interaction.
Testing and review questions.
Parent conferences.
Sampling and demographics.
Teacher reports and student records.

Teachers Should Take the Time to Practice Reading Feedback and to Learn to Be Flexible While Still Maintain Confidence in Making Their Own Judgments.

Teachers need to be aware of learning cycles and how they fluctuate.

They should also be able to evaluate themselves and modify teaching methods based on this awareness of learning patterns.

Effective teaching may take some time to establish and recognize, so accurate interpretation of feedback is a necessary, although sometime difficult, skill to acquire.

The Best Feedback Come from Watching Students Practice Their Learning in the Context of Real Life.

Unfortunately, this type of feedback is virtually impossible to observe in the classroom.

Typical classroom learning takes the form of short-term memorization which is quickly lost, and therefore, never applied by the student.

Teachers must Always Strive to Maintain Professional Standing and to Be a Role Model, but at the Same Time, They must Have Human Interaction with Their Students.

Foremost among the skill necessary to establish this contact, is that of empathizing with their students.

Teachers must constantly act in the best interest of their students.