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[progressally_objectives][thrive_toggles_group”][thrive_toggles title=”Show Transcript” no=”1/1″]So if we’re going to differentiate our feedback conversations with teachers, how can we make sure we’re playing the right role in the right situation, and how can we make sure that conversation actually makes a difference in practice?
We’ve already looked at the Feedback Sandwich, and decided that it doesn’t really work. For one thing, a suggestion – the meat of the sandwich – isn’t really what the teacher needs from us when we’re playing the coach or leader roles, and having reflective or reflexive conversations. And if we’re playing the boss and giving directive feedback, it’s not really a suggestion – it’s an order.
But figuring out what role to play isn’t always easy, so I want to give you an approach that works every time, no matter where the conversation goes.
I call this approach evidence-based feedback conversations, because it always starts with evidence – what we actually see in the classroom – and uses that as the starting point for talking about practice.
Starting with evidence may sound obvious, but too often, we do the opposite – we talk about what didn’t happen, and we make a suggestion that starts with “Did you think about…” or “have you ever tried…” and then we mention something we think the teacher should have done, but didn’t.
Instead, focus on what actually happened in the lesson, and get the teacher talking about it, so you can see the whole iceberg of their thinking and practice.
Why does it matter that we start with what we actually see in the classroom – especially if our goal is to see the hidden aspects of practice through conversation? Why don’t we just ask teachers directly about their thinking, or their philosophy, or whatever it is we’re trying to get at?
Well, we’ve all been in conversations with teachers that were a little too philosophical, and you’ve probably worked with people who love to philosophize, but hate talking about their own practice. And while I believe teaching philosophies do matter, simply talking about philosophy, separate from practice, doesn’t lead to improvement.
So to keep these conversations from getting off-track, we need to start with evidence.
But when we use a word like evidence with teachers, they understandably get defensive. If we start referring to evidence and asking teachers why they did something, or if it worked, or what they would do differently, the walls go up.
So there’s a right way and a wrong way to do this. First, don’t use the word evidence with teachers. It just sounds too forensic, so just talk about what you noticed, or if later on you’re referring to your notes that you took in the classroom, just call them notes, not evidence.
Second, don’t try to rate or score that evidence in the moment. There is a good way to use your teacher evaluation criteria in these conversations, which we’ll talk about in the next module, but stay away from any mention of a score or a rating, because that would totally shut down the teacher’s willingness to reflect and talk openly with you.
Third, to avoid putting the teacher on the defensive, don’t ask WHY questions. If you want to know why a teacher did something, and you ask them directly, why did you do that, they’re going to give you more of a justification rather than an explanation of their thinking.
If you really want to know why they did something, here’s a little technique you can use: ask a HOW question instead, because how questions don’t put teachers on the defensive, and they give the teacher a chance to take you through their thinking. And that’s what we’re ultimately after most of the time, isn’t it? We want to know what the teacher’s thinking, so we can see the whole iceberg and figure out what to do next.
And this can happen even before we decide which role to play – the boss, the coach, or the leader. For example, let’s say I’m visiting the classroom of a newly hired teacher, and I have some concerns about what I’m seeing, but I’m not really sure where the teacher is in terms of that area of practice.
For example, let’s say I notice that the lesson seems to be going over students’ heads, and the teacher doesn’t seem to notice that he’s lost them. I might wonder why he chose the objectives he did for the lesson, but if I ask him directly, he’s probably going to give me an answer, like, they’re in the standards, or, it’s what comes next in the curriculum, that doesn’t really tell me what I want to know.
So instead of asking a WHY question, I can ask a HOW question. So I’d start with evidence, and I might say something like “I noticed that students weren’t responding to your questions during the first part of the lesson, so I wonder if you could talk to me about how you use formative assessment when you’re setting the objectives for the lesson.”
And if I get an answer that indicates to me that the teacher is just doing what the textbook says, without using any formative assessment at all, then I know where I need to focus.
But I’ll also know how the teacher is thinking about those underlying issues. If he doesn’t really know what formative assessment is, that’s going to become clear to me when he’s trying to explain to me how he uses it, whereas if I had just asked if he uses it, or why he uses it, he’d probably be able to bluff his way through it a little bit easier.
So HOW questions are one great way to get at teachers’ thinking, and we always want to anchor those questions in what we actually saw – the evidence – and talk about what we see using the language of shared expectations from our instructional framework. We’ll talk more about instructional frameworks in the next module, but for now, I want to share with you my full set of 10 Questions for Evidence-Based Feedback, which you can download below.
These questions will help you have great feedback conversations without using the feedback sandwich or triggering resistance, because they get teachers talking about what you saw happening in the classroom, instead of focusing on what you thought should have happened.
So download those questions, print them out, and use them in your conversations with teachers. We’ve even formatted them to fit on index cards, so if you’re using index cards to keep track of your visits to each teacher, you can print or glue a copy of these questions right on the back of each card, or just have a separate card that you take with you.
That’s it for Module 3. You’re now ready to get into classrooms and have evidence-based conversations with teachers. In the next module, we’ll add your instructional framework to the mix, so you have clear, shared language to use as you talk about practice with teachers. I’m Justin Baeder. Thanks so much for being part of the Instructional Leadership Challenge. I’ll see you in module 4.
Download: 10 Questions for Evidence-Based Feedback »
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