Creating a Culture of Reflection in Our Schools and Districts
Feedback is one of the most powerful influences on teaching and learning. Yet, creating a culture of feedback and reflection is still surprisingly rare, as is data proving its power.
In his entire teaching career, our CEO and founder, Jamie Poskin, was never observed in the classroom. He didn’t once receive feedback from another educator on his teaching practice. (Yes, that was largely the inspiration behind founding TeachFX.)
And research published by our own David Brazer and colleagues found that lack of classroom evidence inhibited what teachers learned from the changes they made in their teaching practice. With little or no evidence of new practices’ effects, teachers rarely implement new instructional practices proposed by colleagues.
That’s why, in our most recent Office Hours, our own Jamie Poskin and Daniel Bauer of Better Leaders Better Schools facilitated a conversation with educators from around the nation exploring creating a culture of feedback and reflection. Read on for what we learned together when we explored:
What does it mean to create a reflective culture for the educators in your building?
How should feedback function in a great instructional culture?
An instructional leader, what are you doing now to create a culture of feedback and reflection at your school?
Creating a culture of reflection and feedback
Feedback provides us the information we need about what’s happening. To make that feedback real, we need to reflect on what we’ve learned and how we’ll take action to make that learning real.
In a culture of reflection and feedback, educators regularly engage in both practices, together and on their own.
But, welcoming feedback can feel like a high stakes endeavor. How do you create a culture where people feel safe to welcome feedback and openly reflect on it? How do you lower the stakes for the teacher to feel comfortable?
First, get three foundational elements in place…
Be clear what we mean by feedback.
Feedback needs to be specific, kind, and actionable.
And by actionable, we mean not just about what things could look like a year from now, the big vision and guiding principles. It’s asking: What can we change now? How can we be 5% better, right now? It’s about progress, not perfection.
And feedback isn’t only about what we can do better. It’s about recognizing when someone’s doing something great, and saying it.
And, in our schools, feedback is not only about what we see ourselves or our teachers doing. It’s also about what we notice the students doing. (More on this later.)
Be intentional about making the time for feedback and reflection.
Norma Gordon, educational consultant for Public Schools of Brookline, said it so well on our call: “It takes time to create a reflective culture, whether that's building the safe space or the relationships, or just letting the teachers know that it's time that they can have to slow down or redo or reflect.”
The time for feedback and reflection has to be baked into our administrators’, coaches’, and teachers’ schedules.
And, by leveraging technology, we can make both practices take less time. (More on this later, too!)
Make it part of the way we work. Not one more thing.
Reflection is something educators already do on a daily basis. For instance, a teacher puts hours into planning a lesson (that lasts maybe an hour). And then, hopefully, takes a least a moment to stop and ask themselves: How did it go? What went well, what didn't work well? What changes do I need to make?
The right tools and practices can make it simple to embed feedback and reflection into our work. Without creating more work.
Four ways to bake feedback & reflection into the way educators already work…
1. Learning walks or instructional rounds
Learning walks allow us to go into other classrooms, see what works, and reflect on our own teaching in that context. They’re a chance to see what each teacher shines at. And to spot the best ideas we want to take to use in our own ways.
Those visiting classrooms get to reflect:
What are some things that I saw in those other classes that I want to use in my own way?
What did I see that the students appreciated?
What didn't work well for them?
And the people who open up their classrooms get to ask: What did you think? What do you see in what I’m doing?
This is not about assessing teaching or the teacher themselves. It’s about what we gained from being in another person's classroom.
Alongside learning walks, try pineapple charts for teachers to post when they’ll be presenting on anything new and invite others to their classrooms.
And, if your coaches meet on a regular basis, consider having that meeting happen at a different school each time. Learning walks can be baked into those scheduled meetings. And, for added collaboration, a coach can even plan a time during their existing PLCs for teachers to visit each other, to expand on that collaborative learning.
2. Collaborative reflection in PLCs and Learning Labs
Reflecting together, out loud, in PLCs fosters a culture that says it's safe to give and receive feedback, that you’re supported in the things you say and experience, and that people are there to build on your learning; to say, ‘Hey, you know what? I tried this and this works so much better.’
Here’s how Anthony, a math teacher, uses his TeachFX insights to help create a culture of reflection in his PLC…
3. Help teachers reflect on the right things
Teachers spend more than 40 hours a year reflecting on assessment data. Even though there's no evidence that looking at assessment data changes teaching and learning at all.
Reflection matters. And what you’re reflecting on matters. With TeachFX, teachers are looking at the actual discourse patterns in the classroom. They’re reflecting on learning as it happens, not outcomes after the fact.
What’s more, administrators can reflect at a high level on what’s happening school- or district-wide, with all that data TeachFX pulls together into site-wide summaries. (Individual teacher class reports are always kept private.)
Teachers in Chicago Will Soon Get to Reflect on Language in the Classroom
Advanced Strategies for Professional Development in Chicago works with teachers on the road to their ESL and bilingual endorsements.
Through a grant from the US Dept. of Education, ASPD teachers of multilingual learners will soon have TeachFX to help them see the quality of dialogue and discourse in their classrooms.
Mike Pietrzak, CEO at ASPD, says, “I personally believe that these are going to be strong ways to help teachers to really begin to think about the academic language, specifically the academic language that is used in their classrooms among language learners.”
TeachFX will allow these teachers to “dig deeper into the language, not just the exchanges.” They’ll see the words and phrases, the sentences and language patterns, and then the general discourse patterns, and use of academic vocabulary, happening.
With feedback in the form of quick insights into these dynamics, they’ll be able to plan what they’ll do going forward.
4. Equip teachers to give themselves feedback
As mentioned, our own founder never received feedback during his entire teaching career. And we know he’s not alone in that. No coach or principal can be in every classroom. So it’s important that teachers be able to provide themselves feedback.
Video coaching is a pretty familiar way to do this. Teachers film themselves in their classroom, either for their own review or as part of their coaching cycle.
It seems effective. You see what happened during your lesson, in a way that you couldn’t while you were in it.
But…most people (teachers and students included) behave differently when they know they’re on camera. And just about everyone finds it uncomfortable to have to watch themselves on screen or to listen to their own voice. And, of course, there’s the time involved. Having to watch through the whole lesson again to gain that feedback is yet one more thing for our teachers to have to do.
TeachFX is different. Our app allows teachers to record audio of their lesson, and then automatically provides feedback in the form of the most important insights into the teaching and learning that happened.
Rather than sitting and watching that full hour of video, teachers open up TeachFX and immediately see things like use of wait time, length of student responses, and more. They can click in to listen back to key moments. Or just focus on the simple visualization of the information.
Some, like the Jordan District in Utah, have even started pairing TeachFX with video coaching for an even more robust feedback cycle. Hear how that works from Amy Kinder, Jordan’s K-12 Mathematics Administrator.
Whether using video, TeachFX, or both, teachers need to be able to gather their own feedback – to do so when they want it, privately, and in a non-evaluative way.
"When you have the ability to see the question you asked and hear the responses and that immediate feedback right there from TeachFX, it allows for teachers to really dive into their instruction."
– Jon Haga, Principal, Forest Hills Public Schools
With TeachFX, a teacher can record their lesson, reflect on it alone, or come together with their coach to talk about what they saw and what they’d like to do next. They can set a goal and track their own progress towards that goal. They can even share their class report with their coach (though they don’t have to, and all class reports are completely private to the teacher).
Three practices to help k12 leaders provide effective feedback
As one participant in our conversation put it, “What we do is an art form. And to be criticized on your own art, your own creativity, can be really difficult.”
These three practices can help lower the stakes and create a safe environment for feedback.
1. Keep a Teacher’s Mindset
When you’re in a role that means you’re no longer in the classroom, it’s helpful to keep that teacher mindset. Ask yourself: as a teacher, the question is how would I reflect upon something? How would I approach it?
2. Give an A
Encourage teachers to lead their self-reflection from this point of view: You've already got an A. There's nothing you can do to earn it or to lose it. You were picked to be here right now, in this moment, exactly as you are.
Encourage them to frame their self reflection this way: “Yes, I'm good at my job. Now, how can I improve on that?”
Or, frame the feedback conversation with teachers this way: “What you're doing is good; how can we make it better? How can we improve on what we're already doing?”
Then, get specific. Talk about the specific practices or outcomes the teacher wants to focus on, how they’ll do that, and how they’ll know they’re making progress.
3. Model Reflection as a Practice
Instructional leaders who’ve created a culture of feedback and reflection are role models in the culture they’d like to see.
Be willing to open up, to participate, and to be wrong. Be vulnerable enough to let people see you in action and see you mess up; to see that’s part of our learning process.
Danny’s Better Leaders Better Schools Mastermind facilitates leaders becoming that role model by focusing on four pillars: collaboration, execution, feedback, and reflection.
It’s about working together, shipping your work, providing generous feedback to your peers – feedback that will push and challenge and help people level up (so you give and receive a lot of feedback in the process) – and solidifying your learning through reflection.
Leaders who enroll often take this model and apply it to their own schools. They examine in a new light how they encourage and challenge staff to provide generous feedback.
Start. And Be Consistent.
So many educators have gone their whole career without being observed by other educators. So it's understandable that beginning a practice of feedback and reflection might make people nervous.
The key is to be unwavering in our expectations, but flexible in our approach. Whatever approach you choose, over time, people will see how valuable it is to give and receive feedback, learn from each other, and to feel comfortable with the idea that feedback is about reflection rather than criticism.