How I collate feedback from my students and colleagues

by

Continuous improvement is a fundamental aspect of my teaching and learning philosophy – a notion referred to frequently in the business world as ‘kaizen’, loaned from Japanese. While it might not necessarily directly translate into teaching, it is a notion to consider since we as teachers are always looking for new ways to improve with the goal of benefiting education as a whole. In addition, some studies such as that by Suárez-Barraza et al (2015) have looked directly into what classrooms can learn from this operations management methodology.

In order to make improvements, it is important for data, typically in the form of feedback, to be collected from your students, as well as fellow staff members who observe you, in order to identify areas that are potentially problematic and to create action plans to address them accordingly. In addition, such data can bring to light what you as a teacher are doing well, and how you can not only make any additional improvements to that but share that those methods and recommendations back with your school and fellow classmates, as recommended by professional standards 19 and 20 indicated for teachers/lecturers in Further Education. (Education & Training Foundation, 2014)

Gathering data from students

Naturally, the most obvious way to get feedback from students is to talk to them informally, or even just to listen to remarks that they say to you or those you overhear as you perambulate your classroom. Much of what is said can give you indicators of what is going well, and many students are more than happy to vocalise how they feel regarding your teaching or the lessons you have set up for them. In my own experience, some of my students have been more than happy to outright tell me that they like or dislike something, or in other cases how they have found something challenging or tedious – I keep a note of these trends so that I can make further improvements and small modifications where necessary.

In one such case with a Year 13 group, I addressed feedback briefly as part of the next class and incorporated it into both the lesson plan and resources (i.e. the PowerPoint presentation) and gave time for further constructive discussion.

At other times, more written or formal methods can be called upon, a favourite of mine is to use exit tickets. While it is a formative assessment tool and its primary purpose is to gauge what students have learned in a class, often by answering brief questions or listing things that they have learned, additional spaces for feedback can also be useful. (George Lucas Educational Foundation, 2015)

A further method that I was recommended to use by my former advisor was to use sticky notes in a similar fashion; requesting that students fill them in at some point during the class when inspiration hit them, or at the very least before leaving in a similar vein to an exit note. Feedback gathered in this way for some of my Level 3 IT classes proved demonstrated that how I was teaching was both interesting and engaging, but for some students, they remarked it was too easy. It’s noted by Quigley that it’s a great system for actually providing feedback to your students in a silent, passer-by manner also in addition to an opportunity for pupils to provide anonymised feedback. (Quigley, 2012)

Gathering data from colleagues

I am fortunate at my host institution to have colleagues who will informally observe all sessions that I deliver, and provide written feedback in the form of a shared document afterwards; allowing me the opportunity to produce action plans and make revisions or immediate improvements for the next session, sometimes of which is the very next day.

Additional forms of feedback data include those recorded in formal observations in document templates provided by the university, termly meetings with my school mentor, and informal department discussions. These are commonly reflected upon in my post-class reflection documents.

Final thoughts and reflections

Whilst the data I collect from my students and fellow members of staff are immensely useful in improving my own teaching in a ‘kaizenesque’ manner, both in my methodology and in my resources or plans, I acknowledge that they are mostly empirical and qualitative in nature, and do not provide a great deal of statistical information on how I might infer better choices and improvements.

I believe that as a professional and reflective practitioner I am obliged to continuously reflect upon my own practice, particularly in conjunction with feedback received in order to further better myself and to maximise the impact I have on my own students. Further research into data/feedback methodologies is the next step I should look to undertake in order to expand these toolsets further, which will become increasingly important as I become a fully qualified teacher, and must fulfil various targets and requirements, of which themselves will almost definitely be numerical in nature.

Bibliography

A brief analysis of my use of Bloom’s Taxonomy

by

Whenever I have spoken to my personal tutor or other staff at Birmingham City University, as well as my colleagues at my host school, they all have commented positively on my use of Bloom’s Taxonomy in my lesson plans and have praised the detail of my planning overall. As a teacher, it is easy to identify a need for reflection when faced with a deal of criticism, but perhaps it is equally as important to understand why something is going well and what can be done even better to ensure continued success.

Indeed, such reflective practice is supported by standards set by the Education & Training Foundation in regards to Further Education teachers and lecturers such as myself, namely PS 1, 2, and 10. (Education & Training Foundation, 2014)

For the unacquainted, Bloom’s Taxonomy is a set of domains that classify learning objectives by complexity developed by United States psychologist Benjamin Bloom. These domains are cognitive (knowledge-based), affective (emotion-based), and psychomotor (action-based). (Bloom, 1979) For the purposes of this writing, the scope will be limited to the cognitive domain as they are what I use explicitly in my learning objectives, which are traditionally defined as in the order of increasing complexity:

  1. Knowledge
  2. Comprehension
  3. Application
  4. Analysis
  5. Synthesis
  6. Evaluation

Breakdown of my usage

All of my lesson plans will typically consist of three objectives containing verbs that fall into Bloom categories and are colour-coded within the document accordingly. A wider-reaching aim in the ‘SO THAT’ format might also be included to help plan and guide the overall scheme of work. For example, the following objectives were used for a Year 12 programming class:

  • Explain what CSS is and how it is used to complement HTML
  • Employ a range of CSS code onto existing HTML to provide it with presentational formatting
  • Combine existing work with CSS to produce a more elaborate end product

The first two objectives address the lower stages of the taxonomy – the ability to regurgitate information regarding the topic (in this case, CSS / cascading stylesheets) with limited understanding and being able to comprehend and apply the newly acquired knowledge in the form of practical programming tasks, and then ultimately synthesise new work altogether.

The benefits and drawbacks in my teaching life

Having three learning objectives across different stages of the taxonomy allow for clear and realistic targets for the diverse abilities in my class, as well as providing clear guidance on what should be assessed in the class’ Assessment for Learning. Resources for both classroom assignments and homework are easier to develop and scope to the specific needs of the class, as they should look to facilitate those defined learning objectives.

Following a discussion with my university personal tutor, I began to colour-code aspects of teaching resources, PowerPoint presentations, and other items used by both myself and my students to provide a subtle link back to the learning objectives announced at the beginning of the class, without explicitly needing to let them know. From my experience, this appears to provide some subconscious direction as to how what the students get up to relates to what they are required to learn for assessment (whether that be an exam or for coursework) and reduces the number of questions asked by demotivated or bored students as to how the current task ‘is relevant’ or ‘matters’ in the grand scheme of the course. Exploring whether or not other teachers find similar results would be an interesting basis for academic and / or classroom-based research, and a simple way of improving everyday teaching resources and learning materials, though one must take inclusivity (particularly colour-blindness and how colours might render on coloured paper for dyslexia, etc.) into consideration should it become more significant in one’s teaching.

The main drawback however from meticulously designing lessons and resources around three predetermined Bloom objectives is the time overhead. Whilst my lesson plans are detailed and meet all known school (and in the case of formal observations, university-based) criteria, classes take extensive amounts of time to plan due to having not become efficient at the process yet. I understand that with time and experience I will become more efficient at the process as I am constantly reassured of this by qualified teachers, some of whom have decades in the profession under their belts.

Does research support their usage and my opinions thereof

Looking first at research that focuses on computer science or software engineering specific tuition, Niazi (2013) found that the higher taxonomies of the cognitive domain are immensely useful for teaching software engineering to university students, with the other domains, whilst proving ‘helpful overall’, are not necessarily appropriate for higher level students due to their inherent simplicity.

I would argue that while that is absolutely the case for Stretch & Challenge students, such tiers of the taxonomy should still be looked at in the delivery of curriculum, as it is especially the case for incoming students of Computer Science that some students will have had prior programming and/or computer science experience at school, college, etc. and others will have not, depending on the university’s entry requirements – meaning that dramatic divisions in student ability are a challenge that must be prepared for. At Aberystwyth University where I previously enrolled as both an undergraduate and taught postgraduate student in these fields, I observed this to be the case, and can comment that at the time it was positively handled by lecturing staff.

On the other hand, Case (2013) in a critical review of the use of Bloom’s taxonomy explored some of the disadvantages and downsides of its use, specifically that over-dependence on action verbs and their usage as an indicator for understanding or having achieved the level of comprehension and creates a ‘false confidence’ in the assessment of learning. Case also argues that understanding or comprehension of a subject matter should not be so overlooked or perceived in a simplistic manner and that it nevertheless requires aspects of critical thinking to even comprehend.

Final reflections and conclusion

I believe that my usage of Bloom’s action verbs and the taxonomy is a positive foundation for my work as a trainee teacher and that it is something that I should continue to build upon. Whilst it is frustrating when presented with a large workload that planning can take substantial amounts of time, I should make efforts to simplify and make more efficient areas that I can, provided that does not subtract from the overall quality of the planning. Furthermore, I should remain confident that like all practical skills, it is something that I will become more efficient with as I progress in my career, learning from my peers and from literature wherever possible.

Nevertheless, the literature explored provides an important warning of the overdependence on methodologies, and that I should always critically consider their usage rather than following them for the sake of convention. I should be ready and willing to challenge and critique my own teaching methodology, as per the aforementioned professional standards, should it become apparent that further improvements can be made, or that simply a better way of doing things comes to light.

Bibliography

  • Bloom, B. S. (1979). Taxonomy of educational objectives. London: Longman.
  • Case, R. (2013). The Unfortunate Consequences of Bloom’s Taxonomy. Social Education, 77(4), 196-200.
  • Education & Training Foundation (ETF). (2014). Professional Standards for FE Teachers. Retrieved April 27, 2020, from https://www.et-foundation.co.uk/supporting/support-practitioners/professional-standards/
  • Niazi, M. (2013). Teaching global software engineering: Planning and preparation using a bloom’s taxonomy. In Proceedings of the World Congress on Engineering (Vol. 1).