Using Student Feedback to Improve Teaching

There are so many hot pressing issues in the nation and one of them is the opening of classes for school year 2020-2021. I know this is inevitable and the only thing I can do it to be positive with all that is happening and equip myself so that I wouldn't be caught off guard and unprepared.

In preparation for the "New Normal" in education, teachers joined webinars and organizations that offered online self-paced courses to improve their craft. I did as well! But today, while I was on the process of putting together a syllabus for my students, my planning redirected me back on my learners's "Feedback" (which I asked them to write last school year). 

In preparing a lesson, I consider the interest of my students and their behavior while inside the classroom. For the first grading you won't have an interest inventory of students because this is the first time you'll get to know your student. For my planning this year, I will use the feedback I got from my students last year.

In a research paper published at Digital Commons of the University of Nebraska, it was stated that the direct daily observers of the professor's classroom teaching performance are the students in the classroom. It backs up my claim that student survey can be utilized not only in improving the teacher but for school improvement too because the output of the teaching force is a reflection of the institution which nurtures them.

image created in Canva

Let me share how I organize the feedback so that I can easily utilized them to my advantage. 

• First thing first, when asking for feedback from your students, you may prepare a survey questionnaire. But for me I like to make it more personal and less formal. I just use guide questions and write them on the board for the students to answer. Do not forget to add an extra number where student can write whatever they want to say. 
• Instruct your students not to include their names on the paper. That would make the student survey less scary for them and less subjective for you.
• Collect the survey / feedback and read them at once if you have the time. Use paper markers like Stabilo or Faber Castle to highlight important details.
• Organize the feedback into bullets. You may write them or create a neat list in Canva. I like to write mine in a paper and add some doodles. Group them according to the similarity in nature / context.
• On the opposite side of each bullet, write down the actions that you plan to do to improve or to meet their feedback. (feedback without action is a waste of time, paper, and ink - especially the one that needs improvement).
• Use your list of feedback vs. action to your advantage. Execute your action for the feedback that can still be improved at the moment while save those which aren't applicable at the time for your next class.

Some are afraid of the feedback or student survey. But this is a great tool if you want to improve the teaching process. Do not be afraid because as what Ken Blanchard said and I quote "Feedback is the breakfast of champions".

My Vocation is the Noblest Profession

Once I heard a story of the professionals who died and and should pass a screening before they could enter the gate of heaven. Each were asked what is the good deed they have done. Each of them answered:

Architect: I designed the most prestigious hotels and buildings in the world.

Engineer: I built all the buildings and hotels designed by the architect.

Doctor: I healed men from contagious and fatal diseases.

Teacher: I neither design/built a building nor cure men from fatal disease but I worked on the precious minds of these people.

photo credit

Before entering the corporate world I was once a teacher and in my heart I will always be. On a class response, I sworn before my colleagues and mentors that I will practice the noblest profession and vowed to mold thy precious minds. I got lost somewhere in the middle when I decided to take a slight detour but in my heart this vocation will always be remembered and above all be loved.

My heart sank in pain when people talk s*** about my beloved profession. I know there' no money in teaching and if you don't know that, the more reason you should be thankful for the dedicated people out there who still devote their time in teaching. 

Fulfilling this calling isn't easy at all. You can't wear this, you can't do that, you have to be like this and you have to be perfect. People demand that you should be perfect but they will degrade your profession in return. You will always be a subject of criticisms. They criticize this profession but without it, no profession will ever exist. 

Teachers are not perfect, they have their flaws, they are humans and most of all nobody is perfect.

I will give you the rights to criticize and degrade educators if and only you will be doctors, engineers, and architects without passing through a molding hand of a teacher.

I miss it, why not? Oh gosh!

5, 6, and 7! 7:00 ring my bell. Always looking forward to lay my back flat on the bed, close my eyes and let dreams carry me to the deepest room of my unconsciousness. But given the chance I would like to be awake 24/7. I have the feeling that I have so many things to do but time is so scarce.  Darn, why am I rushing things like this, when I use to believe that there's always time for everything like what I use to say to my students. Oh gosh, didn't I tell you that? Yes, I'm a teacher. 

Piles of notebooks to check, exams to administer, meetings to hold and 4th year high school students to guide. Hard but amazing though. It will consume your energy but it will give you self-fulfillment. You'll earn a little yet, you'll be remembered forever. That's how I see my profession. Hard but simply fabulous. 

I took a slight detour to find what was missing but now I admit that I miss moments like these:

"the lovebirds" it's a stolen shot