The other day I was talking to one of my students about success. He has been working very hard to turn his school career and personal life around, and had been having a lot of frustration and depression about what he sees as a lack of progress. I told him that none of us start out as experts in anything we do, and to take heart in the progress he has made so far; his grades were better in the last quarter than they had been before, and he was consistently making better decisions in his personal life.
He responded by telling me that he had made a mistake in his personal choices and it was apparent that he was beating himself up over it. I told him that he needs to understand that he is human; mistakes happen. Instead of beating himself up over it, he should reflect upon what led up to the mistake and role-play, mentally, how he could have reacted differently so that he knows what to do the next time this happens.
I reiterated that success is difficult, and we often fail many times or make many mistakes before we can find consistent success. I suggested he write out his feelings and concerns when he is feeling down so that he can get past the self-criticism and move on to the self-reflection. He agreed to try it and seemed to move on.
But what I said seemed to stick with me; all too often I beat myself up over the mistakes I make, or the failures I perceive as my fault. Instead, I need to reflect upon the changes I can make to avoid these mistakes again. I need to be proactive and reflective rather than reactive and overly critical. This is a key point to finding success in the field of teaching as well as in more focused job of academic interventionist--I already view students who succeed with me as their success, I just help bring it out; likewise I can't view students who fail to find success as my fault, could I do things better or differently to help them find success? Likely so, but I can't take their lack of success personally. Instead I should reflect on the small successes they had and focus on different ways to help them.
I don't think I can ever be a true expert Academic Interventionist, because every student is different--there is no cure-all. Instead, I can become an expert at reflection and adaptation so that I can do everything in my power to give students the chance to find success in their own way.
Thursday, October 23, 2014
Wednesday, October 1, 2014
30 Day Challenge: Day 14: Feedback.
Day 14: What is feedback for learning, and how well do you give it to students?
Feedback is any information given to a student in response to work done. It can be written, verbal, or body language. This last is why it's so important to be aware of our body language when reviewing student work--including facial expression. A student who sees utter revolt or contempt on the face of his teacher while that teacher reads his work is utterly undercut, and no matter what is later said by the teacher, he will remember that look or initial reaction.
Giving timely feedback is something which is hammered into preservice teachers as they progress through teacher college, but it isn't enough for it to be timely. It must be timely, relevant, and constructive. We can't just identify where a student went wrong, we must also show them how do it correctly next time. To do anything less is as useless and almost as damaging as purposely shattering their self-confidence.
The student will become frustrated and angered at the teacher--worse, they will think of themselves as stupid and unable to do the work. "If it's so obvious that the teacher just marked it wrong," the student will think, "and didn't bother to tell me how to fix it, then I must be to stupid to get it right." If the feedback isn't productive, then the teacher is failing to help the student grow and learn, but is instead cropping and stunting the growth of the student.
I am always growing in this department. As a social studies teacher, there were many times that I was simply attempting to tackle a massive pile of work which needed graded. All to often I skipped altogether giving extended (or even any) feedback. As someone who prides himself on being reflective, I now know that I assigned too much work to my students to complete; there were ways aside from what I used that could have been utilized to ensure understanding.
As an Academic Interventionist, I am much better at giving feedback; albeit mostly oral. As I don't grade any work, I instead discuss success with my students. I work with them to improve and learn from their mistakes by demonstrating or working them through the issues they are having.
Feedback is any information given to a student in response to work done. It can be written, verbal, or body language. This last is why it's so important to be aware of our body language when reviewing student work--including facial expression. A student who sees utter revolt or contempt on the face of his teacher while that teacher reads his work is utterly undercut, and no matter what is later said by the teacher, he will remember that look or initial reaction.
Giving timely feedback is something which is hammered into preservice teachers as they progress through teacher college, but it isn't enough for it to be timely. It must be timely, relevant, and constructive. We can't just identify where a student went wrong, we must also show them how do it correctly next time. To do anything less is as useless and almost as damaging as purposely shattering their self-confidence.
The student will become frustrated and angered at the teacher--worse, they will think of themselves as stupid and unable to do the work. "If it's so obvious that the teacher just marked it wrong," the student will think, "and didn't bother to tell me how to fix it, then I must be to stupid to get it right." If the feedback isn't productive, then the teacher is failing to help the student grow and learn, but is instead cropping and stunting the growth of the student.
I am always growing in this department. As a social studies teacher, there were many times that I was simply attempting to tackle a massive pile of work which needed graded. All to often I skipped altogether giving extended (or even any) feedback. As someone who prides himself on being reflective, I now know that I assigned too much work to my students to complete; there were ways aside from what I used that could have been utilized to ensure understanding.
As an Academic Interventionist, I am much better at giving feedback; albeit mostly oral. As I don't grade any work, I instead discuss success with my students. I work with them to improve and learn from their mistakes by demonstrating or working them through the issues they are having.
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