Student Feedback: Using student voice to build twenty-first-century skills

By John Gerard Corrigan

This book outlines why strong, mutual relationships between educators and students are critical for twenty-first-century learning, and demonstrates how schools can foster them using a readily-available tool: student feedback.

Systematically collecting and using student feedback is a powerful, yet safe, way to:

• improve and dev

• Language: English
• Publisher: Castleflag Pty Ltd
• Release date: Jun 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9780994604453

John Gerard Corrigan

John Corrigan has pioneered the systematic collection and use of student feedback in schools to improve teacher practice and student outcomes. He founded Group 8 Education in 2003 and has subsequently worked with more than 200 schools in Australia and the UK, assisting them to establish the conditions needed to equip students with twenty-first-century skills. His focus is relationships - within teams, and between individuals (particularly the teacher-student relationship). To this end, he developed a cognitive coaching method for school leaders and was among the first to introduce coaching to the school environment. Before moving into education, John spent 15 years in strategy consulting, corporate planning and business management within the corporate sector. His leadership ability and passion for education are coupled with a background in mathematics and engineering, from which he designs systems to handle and process complex data. John was born in Manchester, England, and has lived in Australia since 1995.

Book preview

Student

Feedback

Student Feedback

Using student voice to build

twenty-first-century skills

JOHN CORRIGAN

Copyright © John Corrigan 2019

All rights reserved

This book is copyright. Except as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, (for example, a fair dealing for the purposes of study, research, criticism or review) no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission from John Corrigan. For further information, see www.johngcorrigan.com.

First paperback edition published 2019 46 Tebbutt Street Leichhardt NSW 2040

Cover design by Pulp Studio

Layout by Lu Sexton

Corrigan, John.

Student Feedback.

ISBN 978-0-9946044-4-6 pbk, 978-0-9946044-5-3 ebk

Every effort has been made to trace and acknowledge copyright. However, should any infringement have occurred the publishers tender their apologies and invite copyright owners to contact them.

To my wife, Maryse, and

my children – Lina Maria, Laura and Duncan

my inspirations in so many ways

About the author

John Corrigan has pioneered the systematic collection and use of student feedback in schools to improve teacher practice and student outcomes. He founded Group 8 Education in 2003 and has subsequently worked with more than 200 schools in Australia and the UK, assisting them to establish the conditions needed to equip students with twenty-first-century skills.

His focus is relationships – within teams, and between individuals (particularly the teacher–student relationship). To this end, he developed a cognitive coaching method for school leaders and was among the first to introduce coaching to the school environment.

Before moving into education, John spent 15 years in strategy consulting, corporate planning and business management within the corporate sector. His leadership ability and passion for education are coupled with a background in mathematics and engineering, from which he designs systems to handle and process complex data.

John was born in Manchester, England, and has lived in Australia since 1995. His other books are:

A World Fit for Children (2005)

The Success Zone (2009) with Andrew Mowat and Doug Long

Optimising Time, Attention and Energy (2016)

Red Brain Blue Brain (2019)

"John is always coming up with better ways of doing

things. He epitomises thought leadership."

Chris O’Malley, Deputy Principal,

Emmanuel College, Altona

Contents

INTRODUCTION

STUDENT CASE STUDIES

CHAPTER 1 The case for collecting student feedback

CASE STUDY 1 An interview with Dr Mark Merry

CHAPTER 2 Preparing the way

CASE STUDY 2 An interview with Leanne Guillon

CHAPTER 3 Collecting student feedback

CASE STUDY 3 An interview with Russell Deer

CHAPTER 4 Reporting and interpreting student feedback

CASE STUDY 4 An interview with Kate Fogarty

CHAPTER 5 Using student feedback at the individual level

CASE STUDY 5 An interview with Meg Hansen

CHAPTER 6 Using student feedback at the school level

CASE STUDY 6 An interview with Mark Aiello

CHAPTER 7 Future possibilities

AFTERWORD

APPENDIX A – Research-derived question sets

APPENDIX B – A self-administered, self-reflection guide

APPENDIX C – Examples of coaching guides

APPENDIX D – Some examples of individual reports

Introduction

Education is undergoing a major transformation, which has, at its heart, a fundamental shift in the nature of the teacher–student relationship. In a rapidly changing world, it is no longer enough for educators to equip students with skills for the predictable, algorithmic work that was characteristic of many nineteenth- and twentieth-century careers; young adults today must be prepared for work that requires creative and collaborative problem solving – they must be equipped for an uncertain and challenging future.

The shift from a teaching relationship to a learning relationship is fundamental in preparing young people to thrive in the twenty-first century. From the student’s perspective, the shift is characterised by replacing summative assessment and simply being told what to do with formative assessment that stimulates learning by helping them to answer the question: if this is where I am now, where do I go next?

From a teacher’s perspective, this is a substantive cultural shift that involves multiple changes in both beliefs and attitudes – one that is difficult under any circumstances. The belief that an educator’s practice, once developed, can remain static over time is no longer tenable; yet, to replace it with an acceptance that professional practice is always evolving takes time. This change also involves the adoption of new behaviours: self-reflection, goal setting, trying something new, reviewing it – all within a dynamic and demanding environment.

Collecting and using student feedback is a powerful catalyst towards engendering these changes in attitudes and behaviours. Focusing on students and their needs stimulates educators to reflect on their professional practice in the light of student feedback and, with the right processes in place, make incremental changes to improve student experience.

Allowing feedback to go both ways begins to reduce the traditional, one-sided nature of the teacher–student relationship, creating a connection that is more mutual: we are in this together, let’s give each other feedback so that we can increase learning for both of us.

The collection of feedback increases students’ confidence that educators care about their needs and aspirations and, when they see changes occur as a result, their confidence grows – again increasing the chance that they will have the self-assurance to offer feedback face-to-face (where, in the past, such presumption may well have received a humiliating or embarrassing response).

It is not unusual for educators to be apprehensive about the idea of collecting student feedback. It is important to introduce the practice with care and sensitivity; to start slowly, with collected feedback being owned by individual teachers, for example, and to gradually evolve the way data is used as comfort levels increase.

Many schools that have adopted a program of systematic collection of student feedback have experienced widespread staff acceptance (despite initial misgivings), and have found the process to be a valuable tool in staff development and enriching a school’s focus on learning to the benefit of students in terms of their learning and overall outcomes.

However, the process takes time – typically five years or more from when the idea of systematically collecting student feedback is introduced to when student feedback can be used as a resource for building collective teacher efficacy.

The idea that teacher knows best and that there is nothing to be learnt from listening to students is a deep-seated belief that often leads teachers to belittle or embarrass a student who dares to challenge them. The teacher’s own defence mechanisms can, in turn, suppress a student’s willingness to offer feedback again. Changing this belief and its associated behaviours is a long-term prospect; it needs a supportive climate that continually encourages and challenges.

Although no longer so widespread, another tradition in teaching has been the sanctity of a teacher’s own classroom and their right to practise in isolation, unseen by their colleagues. Allowing colleagues to see your practice in action, or to share the feedback from students about their experience in your class, can leave you as a teacher feeling exposed and defensive, which makes change difficult.

Yet all these changes are necessary if the focus in a school is to shift to the growth and development of each child in a fully differentiated form – encouraging each to grow to become the best version of themselves – so that our young people can develop the skills to face up to an uncertain and challenging future. As outdated practices disappear they open up new opportunities for skill development aligned to more modern needs.

This transformation is clearly underway, with some educators already there. These people see themselves as professionals with high levels of self-efficacy; that is, confidence in their own ability, strong drives towards mastery, continuous development of their practice to get better and better, and a preparedness to try and fail – seeing failure as a necessary part of success. Such teachers embrace feedback from students as a valuable means to support their own learning, and thereby improve student learning and outcomes.

At the other end of the spectrum are educators who remain rooted in the past. These people retain the beliefs that were current decades ago. They learnt to cope in their first few years of teaching and retain the same habits today; their professional practice is largely static. Some believe they have achieved mastery; others, that what they do is as good as it can be, although they accept that it may not be that great. Fear of failure, or simply an unwillingness to try anything new, makes them resistant to change efforts. These educators have great apprehension about receiving feedback from students, as they do not believe students have anything useful or positive to say, and that feedback will be used by others to judge or humiliate them.

Most educators fall along a spectrum between these extremes: they recognise that their beliefs must change but still struggle to change the associated behaviours, as we all do (we may recognise that we need to lose weight, for example, yet the behaviour changes needed to achieve that are much harder to implement).

The systematic collection of student feedback for classroom teachers, followed by its use at the individual teacher level and at the whole school level, is a gentle but sustained way to allow new behaviours and beliefs – behaviours and beliefs underpinning the transformation of our education systems – to be gradually adopted and become the norm that defines a culture: the way we do things around here.

As we will see, supporting students to develop autonomous (or self) motivation, rather than using controlled motivation – reward and punishment – is fundamental. Moreover, this support must be provided within an environment of mutual unconditional respect between teacher and student, where formative assessment is provided in both directions. In short, teachers need to model twenty-first-century skills to their students.

One implication of this is that individual teachers do need to work on who they are presenting to their students as much as what they are doing with them. At the same time, leaders need to model to teachers the behaviour they want teachers modelling to their students. In both cases, students need to see what it means to be an adult in the twenty-first century: being confident, collaborative, creative and able to face up to uncertainty and ambiguity with courage.

The central teacher–student relationship is one aspect of education that contributes to the development of twenty-first-century skills in young people; the others are curriculum and pedagogy – and these, too, need continued efforts in this regard. However, I would argue that the teacher–student relationship has been the most neglected because it is the least understood.

This is a practical book; it aims to contribute to the transformation of the educator–student relationship from the hierarchical, one-way, coercive relationship of the past, to one that supports young people to develop the skills and capabilities they need to succeed now and into the future. This modern relationship is more equal, mutual, and supports the development of autonomous motivation in both educator and student.

There are three ways to shift the nature of such a core relationship. None of these strategies is simple and all three require time, persistence and effort.

• Establish a systematic process for students to provide feedback to teachers. This gives students and teachers confidence that such feedback is valuable and supports teaching staff to develop their professional practice.

• Build the capacity of educators to listen and respond to their students more effectively, to facilitate student growth. This will increase the proportion of outstanding teachers (the ones we remember our whole lives, currently around five per cent of all teachers).

• Develop the leader–educator relationship so that, like the proposed teacher–student relationship, it is two-way, so that educators feel empowered to provide feedback to school leaders and to receive and use feedback in turn.

These strategies are covered in three different books.

This book addresses the first of these strategies, which is also the only one not dependent on people – educators and leaders – changing deep-seated behaviours before students experience any effect. In other words, this strategy can be implemented immediately to start the process of changing the core relationship; it only needs an executive decision to start it and a champion to implement it. As we will see, this strategy still takes a long time to achieve its full effect, but good things begin to happen right from the outset.

The second strategy is covered in my 2019 book, Red brain blue brain, which explains the practical steps that an individual educator can take to shift how they respond to the world around them and, particularly, how to respond to another person in a way that stimulates healthy growth for both.

The third strategy is covered in Leading from above (due for publication in 2020), which covers how to engineer the shift in middle-school leaders so that they can support the transformation of the core educator–student relationship.

Each strategy by itself affects the educator–student relationship but, because this relationship is so important to the future of education, all three need to be put in train. This may not speed up the transformation process but will make it more certain.

This book begins by setting out the case for collecting student feedback. It discusses the practicalities of introducing a systematic process, including:

• preparing staff and students

• the collection process

• reporting and interpreting feedback.

Later chapters cover how student feedback can be used at the individual teacher level to improve practice, and at a whole school level.

Interspersed between chapters is a series of interviews with principals and senior school leaders who have multiple years’ experience collecting and using student feedback. Interviews with two students reflecting on their school experiences precede chapter 1.

Collecting school-wide feedback from students, teachers and parents has become the norm. Systematically collecting feedback for individual teachers is the obvious next step. This book demonstrates how to do that in an efficient and effective way.

STUDENT CASE STUDIES

The overriding purpose of this book is to help improve the learning that both staff and students experience in school. The following case studies illustrate the experiences that two successful young people had while at school. The boy struggled; yet, in early adulthood, re-awoke to his ability to learn. The girl did well in school, and would always have done well, yet perhaps would have done better still if she had been able to provide effective feedback – feedback that had been listened to – at key moments in her school career.

Some students struggle at school and simply give up, becoming a losing battle for teachers who apply traditional teaching methods and, sometimes at least, becoming disruptive influences in the classroom. Recognising early – and often – what each student needs and modifying the approach to encourage engagement and reciprocity is an obvious solution. Collecting student feedback in a systematic way lays the foundations for this, creating a climate in which students are heard and in which their voice is recognised to be of value.

The boy

The teacher interaction that sticks with me the most is when I was in school camp, maybe year 5 or year 6, we were in line in the cafeteria and there was some wait for breakfast. We were very hungry, and it was not as if the food was not there, we just had to wait before we could eat for whatever reason. The teachers were eating food. My friend and I, we walked up to the teachers and said something