On the Hunt for Feedback: Self-Directed Teacher Improvement

On the Hunt for Feedback: Self-Directed Teacher Improvement

Teachingis isolating.  Most of the work happens behind a closed door. Teachers want feedback about their teaching, but encounter threeproblems:

1.They don't get much.  The principal or department head doesn't visit veryoften.  And there’s no built-in structure at their school for peerobservation.

2.The feedback isn't helpful or actionable.

Sometimesit's just happy talk -- 98% of American teachers are rated satisfactory -- andwhile everyone likes a pat on the back, evaluations that say "you werewonderful" don't make better teachers.  Or sometimes the feedback iscritical in ways that don’t present clear next steps.  Sometimes it'svague or just plain wrong.  

3.Some teachers can be defensive.  

(Yes,we know – only SOME people are defensive, but not YOU.  You are different. You handle feedback with grace, confidence, and a "let's fixthis" orientation. {Except sometimes maybe not.})

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Thiscourse is based on a simple idea: that teachers take control of their ownimprovement by aggressively seeking out and acting upon feedback about theirteaching.

Theidea may be simple, but the work is not. So we should say straight up: thisis NOT a typical MOOC. Participants in this MOOC won’t improve theirteaching skills by just watching lectures. Participants also won’t really takeanything away from this MOOC if they do it “a la carte:” we believe they needto do every part of every assignment in order to leverage the kinds of changesin practice that we think are possible in a course like this.

Weall wish that our public school system was such that every teacher would haveeasy access to great coaching – or even any coaching at all. But unfortunately that’snot the world we live in. Indeed, high school athletes can EXPECT to becoached, but schoolteachers somehow need to track it down themselves. Teachersdeserve better. But they have a choice: bemoanthe lack of legit coaching that they get and will likely continue to get, orbecome the rare teacher who builds her own improvement loop.  

Class1: The Big Picture on Teacher Feedback

Wewill review the realities of teacher feedback in typical schools, looking atwhere that feedback usually comes to teachers and how it’s processed.  Inmost schools, the teacher plays a passive role in this—waiting until anevaluation comes to them.  We believe the best teachers create theopposite type of process: they HUNT down feedback, drag it back to their lairs,and use it.  They realize that if they wait for good feedback to come tothem, they might wait a long, long time.  

Class2:  Case Study: Peer Feedback

Weprofile teachers who've asked their peers to give them criticalfeedback. How did they ask their colleagues for help? What rubric orobservation protocol did they use? How did they choose what to focus on afterthey got the feedback? What kind of action/improvement plan did the teacherwrite? What happened when the teachers tried to implement their action steps?What did their peers say when they came back to their classroom a few weekslater?

Participantsin this course will do the exact same assignment: they will seek out feedbackfrom a peer to generate their own action plan and a reflection on itsimplementation. Participants will also be assigned to give and receive feedbackon these action plans from other students in our MOOC who are working onsimilar focus areas in similar contexts (e.g. other math teachers who aretrying to improve the rigor of their questioning).

Class3: Case Study: Student Feedback  

Firstwe review the emerging new evidence, from the Gates Foundation MET Project,about student surveys and their power for accurately assessing teachers’strengths and weaknesses.  Then, similar to the Peer Feedback class, weshow a teacher going through all the steps, interspersed with commentary fromthe course instructor.

Again,our MOOC participants will do the same assignment: create a student survey(we’ll show you examples); administer the survey; tabulate the data; write andimplement a plan; and get and give feedback from/to a peer with a similar focusarea.

Class4: Case Study: Assessment Data

Firstwe cover the evidence of how schools and teachers are using student assessmentdata to drive instructional improvements. Then we once again examine examplesof teachers who go through all of the steps of administering a unit assessment,analyzing the data, and designing and implementing a targeted instructionalintervention.

MOOCparticipants will do the same assignment, and then get and give feedbackfrom/to a peer who teaches a similar subject and/or grade level.  

CourseLearning Outcomes:

• To describe both structural and psychologicalimpediments to teachers receiving effective feedback about their practice, aswell as strategies to overcome those impediments. 
  
• To engage in self-directed improvement via threetypes of data collection—action plan—reflection assignments: peer observation,student surveys, and student assessment data analysis.
  
• To provide critical support and feedback to fellowMOOC participants who have similar teaching contexts and/or improvement focusareas.