Beyond the Dog & Pony
Show
Meaningful Student Feedback
Linda Montgomery Buell, Ed.D.
linda@lindamontgomerybuell.com
Some Thoughts about This
Business of Schooling
• What we do really matters—now and far
from now
• Teaching: the most important profession—
and maybe the hardest
• Almost everyone believes our schools—
even our blue ribbon schools—could be
better.
• Ground Zero for school improvement is the
classroom and the relationship between
teacher and student
• The real business of school: creating
work that will engage kids’
attention/effort to the degree
required for achieving desired
outcomes
• The quality of the work provided to
students is at least as important as
the quality of the work the students
do (Philip Schlechty).
What Teachers Need
• A way to get inside their students’
skin
• A vision for the work they are doing
– Seeing kids’ lives as increments of hours
and determining to not be a “Jesse
James” teacher
– Imagining what their former students
will say to them at their future
retirement party
Remember
Most people want and deserve to take
joy in their work. It is management’s
moral obligation to create a system
that enables them to do so. Given a
chance by management and the
system, most people will seek
fulfillment in their work by doing the
best they can.
Edward Deming
Tough Love
• It is unloving to allow persons to
flounder and fail each day and retain
their jobs. It is management’s duty
to inform the employees to find jobs
for which they are better suited and
that would bring them more joy in
their work and personal lives.
(Hoyle, Leadership and the Force of Love, 94).
Honest Love
• Evaluation systems of organizations
are not the problem—human
judgment is. Unloving evaluators can
make evaluation data fit their
personal whims, likes, and dislikes
and paint a picture of the person
being evaluated as a blooming flower
or a dying weed (Hoyle, 88).
Meaningful Student Feedback:
A Tool for Getting Inside the
Skin!
• What it is
• Why it works
• How you do it
What is it, anyway?!
• A system for eliciting high-quality
feedback
• In about 30 minutes
• Without observation of a teaching
episode.
A Little Bit of History
• Not on my watch!
• First use: a disaster (sort of) and a
lesson learned (use other tools for
“tough love”).
• Practice on the “champions.”
• Faculty room scuttlebutt
• Discernment of the essentials that
make it work
• I love working for you.
Why Does It Work?
• It’s voluntary—and the students
know it.
• It promotes genuine student-teacher
dialogue about teaching and
learning—a classroom community.
• It promotes trust at all levels.
• It’s simple and it’s fun.
Let’s Do It! Quick
Overview
• 30 minutes
• In teacher’s absence and at his/her
invitation
• By a trusted peer or supervisor who
can
• Block out whining and group think and
elicit meaningful feedback.
On Arriving: Set the
Stage
• Your teacher has asked me to meet
with you for about a half an hour to
elicit your feedback about your
experiences in this class. S/he wants
to know what’s working well for you
and what s/he might want to think
about changing so things work better.
In groups of 3 to 4, six
minutes
On the board:
3 things we 3 things to
Specific ideas
really like maybe change for positive
change
Caution: Use Your Heads!
• Your teacher has been hired to
exercise professional judgment,
assessing your present skills and
knowledge and devising strategies
for taking you to the next levels in
the time s/he has.
• Your teacher has asked me to elicit
your feedback because s/he wants to
make sure that her/his strategies
are achieving the desired outcomes.
• So don’t waste time suggesting a
change a true professional will reject
(i.e., no essays in an English class; no
word problems in math; no
homework—ever!).
• Focus instead on what you think is
happening or not happening in this
class that is helping or hurting your
achievement.
Consensus is a must at
this stage
• The student in the small group whose
birthday is closest to the nearest
holiday (Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentine’s
Day, May Day) records the group’s
responses. S/he records only those
responses that all three group
members agree on.
After six minutes (not a
second more):
• Stay in your groups but face the
board.
• Give a blank copy of the feedback
chart to the student who has a
reputation “for being the fastest,
neatest writer in the class.” S/he is
to copy onto the chart exactly what
you record on the board.
A Master Chart of All
Responses
• Give me one thing your group really likes
about this class. Record it on the board.
• Depending upon the size of the class: If
two [up to four] people in any other
group(s) disagree with this statement, the
student recorder places an * beside that
comment.
• Move from group to group until all small
group responses are on the board for each
category of responses.
Final Segment: No More
Consensus
• Now it’s all about individual priorities.
• If your teacher were to retain only ONE
of the things you personally really like,
which one thing is most important to your
success in the class? Vote on only one
thing.
• Review the whole column then ask for
votes on each item. The student recorder
indicates the number of votes received by
each item.
• If your teacher were to decide to
adopt one (and only one) of your
recommended changes, which one
change would contribute most to your
increased success? Vote on only one
pair of items (the change and an idea
for making the change).
• Again, the student recorder records the
votes.
Concluding Comments to the
Students
• Thank you for your feedback. I will
be meeting with your teacher later
today and giving him/her your small
group papers and the whole class
chart.
• Send a student to get the teacher
and ask another one to erase the
board.
Final Steps for the Supervisor
 Conference right away, same day if possible.
 Write a summary memo that highlights the
positives—things the students really like and
especially those things receiving multiple “most
important to me” votes—and that provides
additional context for the things the students
would like evaluated for change.
 Context includes reminding teachers that their
professional judgment is the deciding factor in
responding to student feedback.
• Attach the students’ small group
papers and the summary chart filled
out by the student recorder.
A Bit of Advice
• Use this strategy to build, not destroy
trust.
• Do this only with teachers who request
it and rarely, if ever, with teachers new
to the profession.
• Practice on your strongest, most
confident teachers.
• When students need help trying to
articulate their feedback, be careful
not to put words into their mouths
(i.e. no manipulating).
• Keep things moving.