In my 18 years of teaching, I often look back at how I taught then and how different a teacher I am now. Getting better feedback from students has been the biggest game changer for me. One of the first things I warn new teachers that I mentor about it the trap of gauging feedback by watching nodding heads. It’s very easy to say things like “does anyone have any questions?” and assume that silence and shaking heads means they got it.
In this article I’d like to share some very concrete practices (above and beyond the traditional) that were game changers for me. I’d love to hear more ideas from other teachers.
Reflection Papers
I read about this in an article by a math teacher named Dan Kennedy of Baylor School in Tennessee. So every quarter I assign a one page paper where the students have to talk about their experiences, struggles and accomplishments in my course. I had serious doubts when I first assigned this. And as I expected some papers were not very insightful. But many more were inspiring stories, common issues about pace, and even problems with lessons that I previously was sure were successful. The students then get back my comments and it really lets them know that they are being heard. If enough students report something (and I agree with the feedback), I’ll even announce to the class that I’m changing a class policy or practice based upon their feedback. I can’t recommend this enough – just try it one time and I know you will be sold.
Socrative.com
To be sure there are many of these websites where you can get instant feedback from students, this just happens to be my favorite. It takes a little bit of prep work on the front end, but I love seeing results come up live on my screen when I assign a classroom problem. I can instantly see who got the right answer, what was common about the wrong answers, and adjust my lesson on the fly. All of our students have iPads so it’s easy but it works well with cell phones too. It’s free and web-based, so it’s really easy to use.
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