Learning experiences – Perspective from John Loughran
Giving feedback is a challenging task. We find it difficult to offer critical feedback because we fear it will be viewed as a negative response. So in many instances, we provide feedback focused mostly on things that appear to be going well and accompanied by a few guarded suggestions about things that are not going so well. In fact, the person receiving the feedback often wants to know how to address the things that need further attention. Both parties can avoid this situation by approaching their conversation with the aim of describing what happened – that is, what was observed – and opening that up to scrutiny as a joint task. This minimises discussion about “doing it my way” or how to “do it better”. Giving feedback is a skill that needs to be developed and refined; the trouble is that we do not commonly see good role models such as Melanie provides.
The opening of Glenda’s and Melanie’s conversation demonstrates how important it is for teachers to see what happens from a student’s perspective. Glenda is very focused on her students’ work, which helps her to reflect on how she has been modelling her practice and to explicitly link it to the evidence available to her in her students’ work. Recognising that some “get it” and some don’t is much easier to see and accept when it is revealed to us by evidence as in clip 3 than when it is told to us by an observer.
When Glenda and Melanie refer to Effective Literacy Practice, it provides a clear and concise example of how recognising and understanding a “problem” (in the sense of problem as a point of inquiry) allows a more purposeful use of theory to emerge. Seeing a situation that invites us to reconsider what we are doing is important if we are to make genuine links between theory and practice that will better inform our actions. Similarly, knowing what to notice helps us to make connections between our practice and its impact on students’ learning. What we notice also influences what we spend time trying to better understand, and in developing a better understanding, we are able to articulate our views in ways that matter for practice. An interesting reading around the idea of noticing is John Mason’s Researching Your Own Practice: The Discipline of Noticing.
Reference
Mason, J. (2002). Researching Your Own Practice: The Discipline of Noticing . London: RoutledgeFalmer.
