How to make lesson feedback a conversation

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As I watch lessons I try to plan questions under the following broad headings:

1. Praise through questions

We start the conversation with praise to:

• Start positively
• Encourage the ongoing use of/embedding of behaviours that are already effective.
• Support the creation of a mental model of effective practices

3 possible praise-focused questions:

• Some questions are unhelpful starting points. How do you think it went? can lead us down a rabbit hole of misunderstanding. I’d avoid it.
• Tell me five things that went well is similar to the above in that the feedback can go anywhere. Teachers are experts in their practice; they should be able to identify what is going well. Some teachers – often new teachers – are so down on themselves they they really struggle with this type of question. With a teacher who is struggling to answer this, I might focus the question: I’ve got three things you did really well with your entry routine. Tell me what might be on that list. 
• A version of the above includes mentioning something effective you noticed and then inviting the teacher’s interpretation of it. I noticed the students came in and just got started right away. How have you established that routine? The formula I noticed X. Tell me about it can lead to a fruitful conversation, drawing out insights about effective practices. This is not about ‘Guessing what’s in my head’ but checking and discussing our shared understanding of what is effective. 

2. Seek interpretation of the facts

To do this, first you have to note the facts.

• How many students complete the tasks?
• How long do tasks take?
• Where do students get stuck?Have students heard the instruction/explanation? And understood it? Ask them
• Are any instructions not followed? Who is asked a question? 
• How many students participate?

Whilst teaching can’t be reduced to numbers, these lines of inquiry should lead to facts like this:

• 19/25 students didn’t complete all five questions
• After your instructions for the extended task, three students didn’t know they were meant to use the textbook to support them. 
• When you asked for pens down, 5 students still had pens in their hands.
• Every student I asked who didn’t answer a question in class discussion, didn’t understand the key terms you’d been discussing. 

We’ve got to be careful that this doesn’t distract from the highest leverage changes we can talk about with the lesson. It might not matter that students were holding their pens. 

You might really believe there should have been a check for understanding or higher participation but if it doesn’t lead to the problems you’ve anticipated, it’s probably not the most important thing to think about. 

Offer the fact and then ask the teacher for interpretation:

• 19/25 students didn’t complete all five questions. What were you aiming for there?
• After your instructions for the extended task, three students didn’t know they were meant to use the textbook to support them. How important is that misunderstanding?

We ask a question to make sure we’ve not misunderstood. 

The teacher might not care if students complete the first task because it’s aim is settling the students, for example.

3. Invite critique of your hypothesis

The facts lead to a hypothesis.

We can use the facts to co-construct that hypothesis. What could we expect or what did that lead to? 

• Because not all students had their understanding, students didn’t understand Topic/Term X enough to complete the independent task. 
• Because there wasn’t clarity about the task expectations, students were slow to start and behaviour slowed progress in the task.
• Because students only copied the definitions from the board, they didn’t have the depth of understanding they needed to use those terms in their writing.

I might end the hypothesis by inviting critique through a phrase like Feel free to push back on that if it doesn’t feel accurate. 

4. Jointly construct a success criteria 

Jim Knight’s classic question is Where would you put X on a scale of 1-10? Everyone then says something between 4 and 7 depending on how their day is going. 

We can then ask What would a [next number up/two numbers up] look like? 

The list this question prompts can act as our success criteria for where we want to get to.

 

5. Summarise

We can do this throughout the conversation. 

I’m hearing… Is that right?

If I’ve understood, you’re saying… Would you add anything?

So the key problem we’re trying to solve is… Do you agree?

We can also flip this and say Can you just sum up what I’ve been saying just to check if I’ve been clear. 

6. Offer a menu of next steps (where possible)

Sometimes there’s a clear next step. Sometimes we just know. Sometimes the manner of feedback we’ve agreed to give or the systems we’re giving feedback within mean that we’ll either be specific about the next step or be leaving the conversation more open to co-define what that next step might be.

So one avenue might be:

If our hypothesis is… what could we do about it?

If the problem we’re trying to solve is… what could be the first step in solving that problem?

I realise the trend in feedback is for ‘telling’ or giving next steps. Often I will do that but, as with our students, we want the people we’re talking to be thinking as much as possible. Remember we’ve defined the area already. If we’ve said student participation is too low, there aren’t many places we can go wrong from if we respond to that hypothesis (turn and talk, more practice, mini-whiteboards, cold call).

If we think the step isn’t quite right, we can always ask, How does that address the problem we’re trying to solve?

Another avenue might be:

To address this problem, we could do a few things. Listen to these – which do you think might be our priority?

[Introduce option A and B]. Which of those seems like it most addresses for you what we’ve been talking about?

In some conversations at this stage, I’ll model either myself or through video and we might practice. It depends what the step is – not every behaviour is easily practicable. 

7. Ask the person how they will change their behaviour 

How is this actually going to happen? 

When is this going to happen?

What might get in the way of this happening?

What reminders or safeguards could you put in place?

The purpose of these questions is  to engineer our behaviour. We can put the reminder in the calendar there and then or put a checklist on a post-it and stick on a desk ready. 

We can create agency and prompt motivation through the questions we ask. The above model is not ground-breaking but when we plan questions we make sure we’re planning for the recipient to be thinking and engaging with the feedback.