Students Teaching Teachers

Takeaway: 

Students are the real experts of their own learning. Giving them a voice in a safe environment enriches their own learning and can improve the practices and decision making of their teachers.

Students Teaching Teachers:

It can feel like an oxymoron, but great teachers know that they have a lot to learn from their students. Knowing how to leverage this by creating a classroom climate in which feedback goes both ways is critical in being the best educator you can be. 

In general, students know what they need to succeed more quickly, deeply, and accurately than teachers do. This is especially true the older that the students are. If your students struggle with understanding their own learning preferences, strengths, areas for growth, and how to advocate, there is a good chance that they need to learn these skills from their teacher. But, once these skills are more common within your students, you are on the right path for the most effective way to learn from your students - two way feedback.

So, how does a teacher create a climate for two way feedback? Really, it all comes down to trust. If the teacher is caring, consistent, loving, and predictable, you have a recipe for trust building. Add in your professionalism and expertise and you are ready for a trust based classroom!

Building Trust

With building trust, a teacher must create a psychologically safe learning environment. This is a place where students believe that they can take risks, try something new, and do not have to be afraid of their teacher or how she might respond. This level of safety is an imperative in having the environment be one where students can be vulnerable.

After establishing and consistently supporting such a climate, teachers will find that students will be much more free to voice themselves as they will feel that what they say really matters and will be treated with respect and dignity. This can lead to the two major methods of receiving feedback: personal and survey.

Personal Feedback

Personal feedback goes from one person to another while face to face. Teachers are experts in offering personal feedback as we can oftentimes summarize what a student needs to know in a few seconds, or dialogue very deeply and meaningfully for much longer.

The same can happen from a student. Asking your students their thoughts on what they are learning, the quality of an assessment, their experience regarding timeliness or teacher organization, or on the quality of instruction are great starting points to get great feedback. I suggest you start out slow and make sure you respond to feedback positively and with active listening as asking students to be critical of your class or to offer feedback can be very uncomfortable for both the student and the teacher.

Survey Feedback

Surveys are another great way to get student feedback. Allowing for anonymous responses takes a strong dose of humility, but provides the necessary opportunity for students to be real, honest, and blunt. This type of raw and sometimes straight forward feedback can sometimes hurt, but oftentimes leads to big changes in our own understanding on student learning and our effectiveness. The short term sting today can pay off in huge ways tomorrow!

Reading the Room

A much more indirect way to learn from your students or to get feedback is to read the room. Looking for student body language, whether they are engaged in the lesson or not, or if there is an overall feeling of frustration or confusion is essential to knowing what the students are experiencing.

Some people have a natural ability at this. They can walk into a room and know what the mood or thoughts of the students are. Teachers in general seem to have much higher levels of perceptibility, but this is something that can be learned with experience and focus over time.

Concluding Thought

You can see a common theme, in order for teachers to teach their students, they have to be able to learn from them. Being humble, vulnerable, and willing to try new methods of supporting your students based on their feedback can create a classroom where everyone learns.