Feedback

Assignment 2 for PID 3260 is to create a Feedback Instrument Document.  Essentially this means asking students what is working and what is not working in a course.   Chapters 3 and 4 of Brookfield’s (2015) The Skillful Teacher provide the focus for the assignment and their titles alone provide key points.  Chapter 3: Understanding Our Classrooms, and Chapter 4: What Students Value in Teachers.  According to Brookfield, it is important to know how students are experiencing learning in our classrooms, and what they perceive as important attributes of an effective teacher.  How can we know these things if we don’t ask the students?  Creating an appropriate feedback instrument is a good exercise for this course and for lifelong teaching and learning.

The TEDtalk below supports this idea.  Bill Gates describes a project of the Gates Foundation called Measures of Effective Teaching and why it is important for teachers and ultimately for students. Surveys, he says, can be used as “diagnostic tools” for teachers to improve upon their teaching to help their students learn.

Check it out:

References:

Brookfield, Stephen D. (2015). The skillful teacher: on technique, trust, and responsiveness in the classroom. (3rd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.