Recently I gave a presentation for the Brisbane Catholic Education Office titled “Feedback and Instruction”. I was trying to make several points:
- that teacher feedback is best received in a school culture that openly advocates feedback for all, including school leaders
- that observation must be non judgemental (this can be hard for teachers who are trained to make hundreds of judgements each day e.g. that correct algorithm indicates the student can move onto to ….)
- data comes in many forms and some of the most powerful includes student voice
- its the conversations and decisions that teacher make from the data that should be valued particularly if they have an inquiry focus (e.g. I wonder if we did …… then we might get ….. or lets test that………..)
- instructional frameworks (I presented 3: E5, Marzano, Peter Hill in the presentation) give us a common language to describe teaching.
I have left those present with an open invitation to continue our conversation through email or my blog – good luck!
