How to Engage in an Improvement Cycle: Creating a Feedback Loop
Takeaway:
Being stagnant or complacent is painful for many, myself included. We are all called upon to grow and be better tomorrow than what we are today. Creating a feedback loop that allows you to better understand your own performance, areas of strengths, and areas of weakness, is a great way to self-improvement.
Feedback Loop for Constant Improvement:
In a nutshell, the feedback loop consists of three parts:
Goals
Feedback and data
Reflection and adjustment
This cycle allows for you to create a system for constant improvement. It allows each person to determine what journey they are on (goals), what information is needed to measure success or progress (feedback), and to recalibrate or make adjustments as needed (reflection).
Goals
As we have seen with Objectives and Key Results (OKRs), goal setting can have a massive impact on one’s success. Clearly establishing an objective along with specific measurements that will lead to or demonstrate that success is a best practice. Combining OKRs as goal setting with your own teaching or professional practice is probably the best way to make meaningful progress.
When thinking of a goal for the school year, I like to ask the question that Steve Barkley often poses, “What is it that my students need me to learn?” This question puts a teacher in a different frame of mind. Instead of thinking about what the admin want or what the teacher wishes to do, it puts you in the student’s seat and requires their perspectives.
Some schools may ask teachers to have a personal goal, departmental goal, and a school-wide goal, some of which are given to them. This is fine, but goals are usually best kept to one or two. Just be sure to keep them focused on your own professional growth to increase student learning and you will be okay. And, with your objectives, add key measurements that will let you know how your progress is going for each goal.
If the teacher is a new hire to the school, starting with a goal based on their own perceived areas of growth can work. If the teacher is returning, ideally the goal is based on data collected from students. This data can be test scores or student grades, but anecdotal information such as surveys and conversations can sometimes be even more helpful.
Feedback
To collect this data, teachers need to review their two sources. Student scores and student feedback should drive the data for teachers to consider. Why did the student perform much lower on a recent assessment? Were the instructions unclear? Questions extra challenging? Not enough time dedicated to teaching the content? How about for externally assessed work such as state exams or AP exams? These are all variables that can impact a student’s score, reflect on them.
On top of these scores, be sure to also collect feedback directly from the students on how classes are going. If school were a business, students would be our clients or customers. Understanding their perspective on how we are best serving them can both give them a sense of agency and help us to customize the learning experience. Yes, we will sometimes receive stinging feedback, but we should be constantly looking to grow and improve.
And beyond surveys, talk with your students. Ask them in person about their thoughts and experiences. This level of vulnerability and transparency can really build trust and help to create a cooperative learning culture, not necessarily one where the teacher teaches and the learners learn. You may be surprised by the impact of such an exercise.
Reflection
Finally, reflect on your goals and data. Look and see if you have collected the right information to properly measure your success in pursuing your goals. If you are one of those returning teachers, also take a moment to ensure that you set the right goals based on the data received. Perhaps you feel the need to improve your innovative assessment practices, but your students already think you are quite wonderful at it. However, they may believe that your classes are too lecture-based, so it sounds like the goal should have been set on innovative learning, not assessing.
Take this time to really review alignment between your practices, goals, and data. Personally, I like to create a report on this cycle as a leader and share it with my staff so that they can see my goals, data, and progress towards them. I encourage our teachers to be willing to share the same with their students so that they understand that their feedback and data make a positive difference on their teachers and their own learning environment.
The end goal for all of this activity is for individuals and institutions to grow and improve. As there is no finish line or mountain peak in education, continual growth and learning must take place. This not only serves our students as growing teachers will improve the learning experience, but also brings about a sense of a learning community within the staff. And that is very important indeed.
Summary
We all have room to grow, no matter how much experience or success we have had. Creating an internal system of setting goals, collecting feedback, and taking time to reflect can ensure that you are always developing. Our jobs are too important to not be constantly improving, following these steps will make the classroom experience better for both you and your students.