Leadership / First Year of Teaching / Best Practice

Leadership /First year of Teaching / Best Practice

Giving Feedback

Grant Wiggins describes feedback as more than just hearing comments made after the fact, namely: advice, praise, and evaluation. He asserts that feedback is the information we receive about how we are doing to reach a goal. (Wiggins, 2012 ) Usable feedback followed by advice should be our goal. When giving feedback, we must be specific and non-judgmental. It sounds so easy. Yet I have found providing usable feedback is be probably one of most difficult skills to master. This skill crosses all levels. From my administrative perspective, providing good feedback to teachers is critical. From a teacher’s point of view, providing the right feedback to students is essential.

Hundreds of articles and books have been written on this topic. However, I believe that when new administrators enter the field they have little practice or knowledge in this area. I do not recall any course being given in “principal” or “superintendent” school on the art of feedback. I would like to hope that this has changed in our modern era, but I am not optimistic that much of a change has occurred. I will extend my argument to assert the same may be true of teachers. How much undergraduate time is spent on this topic? How much in district professional development time is spent on feedback? Once again, I will argue not too much. So basically, we fly blind in the area of feedback. Yet, it is a critical skill. Today I will take a quick look at some rudimentary concepts of feedback.

Feedback must be actionable. What good is feedback if we do not process it, reflect upon it, and implement some of the advice we receive after we assess the feedback. I will share a brief anecdote. I am a big believer in numerous short visits into a teacher’s classroom to evaluate. I am a strong advocate of the work of Kim Marshall, if a district implements his plan as is it is supposed to be implemented. Our current new evaluation systems, in my opinion, have not improved instruction one bit. What they have done is made several people and companies quite rich. I will save that discussion for another day. The visits that Marshall talks about are extended learning walk visits. By current policy, these would not be considered short or long observations. Saying that, I would preach to my administrators that it is not about the walk, it is about the talk that follows. I was trying to emphasize the importance of feedback. One day after hearing me once again remind everyone about this, a principal chimed in and stated that it is really not about the walk or the talk it is about the action that follows. Well done. Kudos to this principal. He got it. Unless behavior changes our walks and talks become useless. But I believe that many principals purposely work to avoid that talk.

Before people can receive feedback, they must have a clear understanding of what is expected of them. Many times, feedback will fall on deaf ears because people do not really know what one’s expectations are. Goal attainment is the end result. Therefore, if people know and understand their goals and have a clear understanding of what is expected of them, feedback is easier to give and receive.

From conducting some personal action research, I have found that for the most part teachers do not value any feedback given to them by their administrators. It is a little dance that everyone does. No feelings are hurt, no truth is told, and no change in behavior is ever evidenced. As each teacher reads this blog today, I ask he/she to think long and hard and to try to remember the last piece of good feedback given by an administrator. Although not in the business world, I will speculate the same thing happens there. When was the last time your boss or team leader gave you feedback that you could actually use? Once again, I will bet that you will have to dig deep into the archives of your mind to remember that moment. I reflect upon much of the feedback that I gave over the years especially early in my career and will admit that it was for the most part unusable. I think I improved with age but still was weak in this area.

Why does this happen? I think the first reason is that we do not want to hurt the person’s feelings. Everyone wants to be liked, and most people are generally congenial. One might also worry about the ramification that may accompany what one would perceive as negative feedback. Many times, I softly peddled my feedback because I did not want to go down the long list of nuisance activities that could accompany negative feedback such as meeting with union representation, protracted response writing, and appeals. There were times that I made the determination that honest feedback was not worth the effort. Upon reflection, I was wrong. Honest feedback is clearly worth it.

Also, I strongly believe that most do not know how to give or receive feedback. This should be incorporated in all undergraduate work, graduate work and meaningful professional development on an ongoing basis. We will only get better by practicing this skill. Repetitions in this area are critical. Let’s take a lesson from the athletic field. Athletes repeat, drill, and evaluate their practices. We need to do the same with giving feedback. Film a feedback session and then pick it apart. Coaches film everything. They evaluate everything. Why are we reluctant to use this practice in education?

I would like to review several ideas to help you become better at giving feedback.

Initiate the conversation-Sometimes it might be wise to seek the person’s permission. Others times may call for directness.
Share what you have noticed-Explain clearly what you saw.
Provide specifics-Be exact with evidence of what you saw.
Give the person an opportunity to self-evaluate-Give the person an opportunity to provide clarity to your observation.
Problem solve-Ask the person to be reflective and provide alternatives to what was observed. Then you can provide your options. Together a plan will emerge.
Ensure that the person understands your feedback-Be direct and check for understanding. Do not be ambiguous. Yes, it is important to be aware of other’s feelings but do not let that mitigate or change your feedback. You may want the person to explain back to you your feedback. Ask the right questions of that person.
Explain why it is important-There is an opportunity for the teacher to internalize the feedback and make changes. It is critical that he/she understand why it is important. (Hurt and Dye, 2017)

Feedback presented in a skillful manner will positively affect the growth of that person. Some reminders: don’t be judgmental, be clear and specific, provide evidence, and never offer anyone any false hope or encouragement.

Practice leads to perfection. The more you work on this skill the better you will become. It is never easy, and it could be the hardest thing you have to do. Keep at it. Do not give up. Do not compromise your principles or what you know is right for the easy way out!

References

Hurt, K. and Dye, D. (2017). This Seven Step Guide for Dishing Out Feedback is Totally Idiot-Proof. Retrieved from https://www.fastcompany.com/3067738/this-seven-step-guide-for-dishing-out-feedback-is-totally-idiot-proof.

Wiggins, Grant (2012, September). Feedback for Learning. Educational Leadership,70(1). 10-16.