“Hey, kids, how did I do today? Did I teach you?”
I have not heard a teacher ask students these questions. Why not? When the bell rings and the classroom empties, a teacher is alone to grapple with self-assessment. However, the question “How did I do?” is suborned with “I need a bio break” or “I need to get ready for the next class.” Bodily needs and job demands are easy answers to why a teacher does not engage in immediate reflection. But being unprepared to do so is the real culprit. Unless there was a god-awful moment in front of children, teachers do not regularly self-assess their teaching.
What do we know?
Our training tells us that feedback comes from above. Teachers give children feedback on student learning. Principals give teachers feedback on their job performance. The school community gives the school district feedback through electoral support. Feedback does not derive from subordinates. We see surveys in the private sector, exit polling after a purchase or service is rendered. “Rate us – how did we do?” However, the common belief is that consumer surveying is window dressing and does not affect prices, products, or services.
Our professional preparation is one directional: Teachers grade children. Children do not grade teachers. And really, how could you trust how children tell rate their teacher’s teaching? Any feedback from children to teachers would be ladened with “brown nosing” or loaded with complaint.
I can just hear a child’s supper table talk that night. A parent asks, “What did you at school today, dear?” And a child says, “My teacher asked us to grade her. To tell her how well she taught us today.” And the parent asks, “Did you have to sign your name? I hope you gave her a good grade.”
And I can just hear the talk in the teacher’s lunchroom. “You what?” “How would they know if you did a good or fair or bad job of teaching? They do not know these things.” “Good luck with that. And what are you going to do with what they told you?”
What a dilemma for children. And teachers. With every good intention, asking children to give feedback on how well a teacher teaches is both the right question and a highly problematic question.
What should we know?
It is professionally sinful for a teacher to not know at the end of a lesson or week’s teaching or a unit of instruction the quality of her teaching. A prepared professional teacher uses various strategies to gain information about the quality of her instruction and constantly makes both self-assessments and assessments using second- and third-party feedback.
There is a stereotype of teaching that looks like this. A principal gives a teacher a curriculum to teach. The teacher drafts the curriculum into units and writes lesson plans to teach the content and skills of each unit. Once written and taught, the teacher files the unit and lesson plans for repeated teaching the next school year. A teacher’s file of units and lesson plans stay the same until the school changes curricula and then the cyclical process of unit design and lesson writing is repeated. Units and lessons are the same year after year just like reruns on television.
The only disruption to the above cycle occurs if the teacher’s students do not score well on statewide academic assessments. Then the issue is to question the curriculum. Next, the alignment of lessons with the curriculum. Finally, the quality of instruction. Interestingly, statewide assessments only test reading, English language arts, and mathematics. The quality of instruction in all other subjects and by all other teachers is not subject to statewide assessment review. We cynics believe this approaches another professional sin – only what is tested matters in school.
Memory is not a good assessment tool. In conversation with teachers over time, a common theme about their post-lesson memories of how well the lesson was taught is “I do not know. I do not remember.” This is not a problem with their memory; it is the reality of how much happens in a lesson and how quickly they unfold. Madeline Hunter taught us that a teacher makes hundreds of decisions during a class period. A teacher’s senses – sight, hearing, feelings – are on alert as soon as children enter the classroom through the last child leaving. It is like playing a game of catch with all children simultaneously – keeping the ball moving, never making too wild a toss to any child, and never dropping a toss coming back. It would make a professional juggler dizzy. It is not unreasonable for a teacher to say, “I do not remember every toss and catch.”
What does getting student feedback look like?
Best instructional practices help. Effective teachers seek formative information before a lesson begins, after first instruction of new learning, during student mulling and guided practice with new learning, when children integrate new learning with prior knowledge, and prior to summative assessments. Effective teachers are not looking at high achieving children but at children who “might” be most challenged in their learning.
Best practice is effective when a teacher considers any/all formative information and adjusts what is being taught or how it is being taught, makes corrections in what children seem to be learning, and makes instructional clarifications that help children achieve a higher level of accuracy and understanding.
Best practice is keeping a teacher’s eye on the learning goals. It is the realization of backward design. An effective teacher is always looking at how well children are reaching and approximating the lesson and unit outcomes. As the teaching of a unit unfolds it is easy to let the unit go where it wants to go. That means letting children who learn easily dictate later instructions, letting the pace needed by early learners set the pace for all children in the class, and letting closure come when most children have learned the lesson. The backward design goal is “all children will successfully learn …” Being faithful to the goal says that instructional time and effort are what the last child to learn needs to be a successful learner.
Best practice is using differentiated strategies AND assessing the success of each strategy to achieve student learning. Effective teachers measure success using an academic test and getting information on the effectiveness of each of the instructional strategies and materials they use to teach the same lesson to different student groups. The goal is equitable access to the core curriculum recognizing that a differentiated approach to the same goal is necessary because of student variance. Post-assessment is necessary to assess student learning success AND to adjust aspects of differentiation to ensure valid instructional equity.
In each of these best practices, assessment is essential. Some assessments are data-based, and some are observational. Just as a safe driver always is checking surrounding traffic, especially looking into rearview mirrors, a teacher is constantly checking classroom traffic, especially reflection on their own teaching, to ensure student learning. “How did I teach and how well did I teach?” are the way they check the classroom’s rearview mirrors.
How well did I teach? Try these.
Check fidelity to your lesson plan? Did you teach it as you planned to or did you go off script? Use your red marking pencil to grade your work just as you would grade a student’s submitted work. Be honest and critical of yourself.
Check how students respond to your lesson plan? Did student response and reaction to my teaching go as planned or did their reactions cause me to adjust my teaching? Recall and write down the questions students asked as your road mapping of the lesson plan. Student questions show the clarity of their understanding of your teaching.
Check your checking for student understanding? As I saw each student’s immediate understanding of my teaching, were they with me? Clarifications are expected, but backing up to start again means my lesson planning was ill-planned.
Perhaps make an audio recording of the lesson. Use a lavaliere microphone blue toothed to your phone to record everything you say. This is an honest and powerful reality check. Many teachers are not fully aware of all that they say, how they say it, and why they say it. The speed of teaching overwhelms their immediate memory. An audio recording is clear data. An effective teacher checks for clarity, appropriateness, and accuracy. Also, she checks for inappropriate speech. This is not vulgarity or demeaning language but the use of idiomatic language that skirts the edges of appropriateness.
Perhaps make a video recording of the lesson. Place a camera in a corner that provides wide angle optics of the classroom. Click the start button just before children enter the classroom and let it run until they leave. The video and audio may not cover everything, but it will provide real data about your teaching and how children respond to your lesson.
Or just ask children, “Hey, how did I do today? Did I teach you?” The first time you ask is the hardest. The second and later times will be easier. Asking really is easy. Listening is more difficult. You may listen orally or ask children to write their responses. Anonymity is almost impossible, you know their penmanship as well as their voices, so do not waste time trying to fabricate anonymity. It is honesty you want.
And, if you really are interested in self-improvement, share your findings with another or other trusted and professional teachers. Ask them for their impressions, reinforcements, and recommendations for change. Engage in a professional lesson study of your self-assessed lesson planning, audio and video recordings, and student responses.
The Big Duh!
The reason we teach is to cause children to learn. Our educational systems have so-called evaluative and accountability protocols, but they are so disconnected from daily teaching as to be meaningless. The principal’s annual evaluation meeting is about job retention not instructional effectiveness. Data from statewide student assessments can be drilled down to learning results in individual classrooms, but most schools refrain from this. They fear parental identification of more and less effective teachers and the pressure to place all children with the more effective teachers.
Given this abyss, you are on your own. Use a variety of indirect and direct strategies to get real and informative data about your teaching. And if you are strong enough ask the children “How did I do today? Did I teach you?” ask them!