appendix 4d - ensuringeffectivefeedback
TRANSCRIPT
Ensuring effective feedback for focussed CPD ■■■■■
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Ensuring effective feedback for focussed CPD
Peter Taylor provides practical guidance on giving feedback to staff on classroom practice
and shows how this can form an integral part of teacher professional development.
■■■ The purpose
As a serving head o more than twenty years I have spent
many years coaching and giving eedback to people in order
to get them to a stage where they become sel-generating,
sel-motivated and reective proessionals. Initially much o
the eedback given was linked to lesson observations but as
I developed my eedback and coaching skills I have reected
long and hard in relation to giving o eective eedback in
all situations. In the giving o eedback I have always aimed
to help colleagues become personally reective proessionals
not dependant on my input but being prompted by me to
think a little harder and deeper about their actions. I have
ound sta at all levels can appear to be eective intuitively
but they don’t always know why.
Sta who are less relective can ind it hard to
analyse their own perormance, develop their own
solutions and generate their own plans and learning
when things go wrong or circumstances change. Oten
they are not good at reecting on, conceptualising or
articulating their successes and ailures and as such they
tend to repeat patterns o behaviour. Tis inability to
see ones own patterns o behaviour is most noticeable
in the classroom, especially i those being taught are
quite well behaved and not prone to react to a teacher
who demonstrates patterns o behaviour that are less
helpul than they might be. It is in the giving o lesson
observation eedback that the eective team leader can
most quickly develop the skills o coaching and learn
to promote sel-evaluation in the sta s/he works with.
By being eective at the acilitation o eedback to
colleagues, ater lesson observation, team leaders can
assist those colleagues who are prone to being active
without the essential underpinning o reection, sel-
awareness and continuous improvement.
■■■ The right mind-set
Te giving and receiving o eective eedback is not always
easy. It is so natural to be kind to a colleague or a team; it
is also easy to be a little too rank when giving eedback,
especially i there is conict in the organisation. Te giving
o eedback is a two edged instrument and it can be very
sharp and the instrument is only as good as the person
1
19
P r a c t i c e
a n d P ol i c
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I have ound this three-stage approach to be very eective.
I you read more o Egan’s work you will nd that each
o these three stages is sub-divided but in the heat o the
moment during a dynamic coaching or consultancy session,
I nd the three stages sufcient.
■■■ The right time
Tere is no single, correct time or method or giving
eedback to a member o sta who has been observed in
action. Tis is down to the judgement o the observer and
his/her awareness o the colleague who has been observed.
It is advisable to ask when it would be best to hold the
eedback meeting. Negative or difcult eedback needs to
be very careully timed, as many colleagues have to go back
into the classroom/ofce ater eedback and so sensitivity
is needed. I very poor or unproessional perormance is
noted action should be taken immediately and in line with
agreed protocol. As you become more procient the giving
o eedback will move rom being a once a year event, at
perormance review, to being a key process in understanding
the organisation, co-ordinating and maximising the talents
and aspirations o sta, impacting powerully on the
organisation’s climate, culture and results.
So as one’s own coaching skills develop, the giving o
eedback goes beyond eedback ater lesson observation
and becomes an essential part o an ongoing process o
continuous development. he eedback to teams and
individuals becomes very context linked, personalised
and eective. In this process it is not an event that takes
place once in a while but a process that occurs daily and in
context. Tis orm o eedback puts sel-evaluation at the
heart o the process with you becoming more o a coach
than an expert and sta learning to sel-generate in the ull
sense o being a proessional.
■■■ The right place
Tere is no one place that is correct or eedback. So long as
the eedback is eective and well received by the receiver/s
the actual room or place is not important. Clearly this
is contextual - the receiving or generation o in-depth
eedback would be best done in a suitable environment that
allows or subtle coaching and dialogue. Other orms o
short term coaching and eedback can be done very quickly
and easily in any context so long as condentiality and
using it. Beore you give any eedback you have to learn
to examine your motives and manage your manner and
approach or the process can be a negative or unproductive
one. o be very eective at giving eedback I suggest you
need to have total ocus on the team or team member
you are working with. You need to notice small verbal
and physical clues and be prepared to be adaptable and
exible in order to get the job done to the satisaction o all
concerned. o have this total ocus I think it is useul to
become an ‘expert single tasker!’ You hear so much about
‘multi-tasking’ these days; this is the thing men can’t do
well, we are told! I the colleague/s you are giving eedback
to sees you are thinking o something else, or even worse
doing something else [like answering the phone], then
any notion o quality eedback and coaching will almost
certainly be lost.
■■■ The right skill-set
Rather than thinking it is best or you to be good at giving
eedback have you considered being good at getting your
sta to generate their own eedback? In such a situation
the expert coach can draw eedback rom the colleague/s
and then create a dialogue that allows them to identiy
the issues and ideally generate the solutions and urther
action/CPD. In this situation, as coach, you can still have
the power to limit action, and this process oten allows the
colleague/s to generate real ownership o the issues and
the solutions, in short they give their own eedback! Tis
strategy is particularly eective in the giving or acilitation
o eedback ater lesson observations.
o ensure you at least start to allow your team members
to create their own solution, generate their own thought
in relation to personalised CPD and perormance, there is
a method o coaching that is well tried and tested. During
my coaching and consultancy work, the approach I adopt
in most meetings is that o the ‘skilled helper’ as outlined
by Egan (1998 p24):
Stage 1 Current scenario (What are the problems we
should be working on?).
Stage 2 Preerred scenario (What do we need or want
in place o what we have?).
Stage 3 Action strategies (What do we have to do to get
what we need or want?).
■
■
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Ensuring effective feedback for focussed CPD ■■■■■
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sensitivity are held in mind. In some team situations the
giving o open eedback is acceptable especially in situations
such as team training events; this is similar to the sport
coach giving verbal eedback quickly and very much in
context. o be aware o what is acceptable in what context
needs great sensitivity and a good knowledge o the team
or the individual, this takes experience and a good degree
o emotional intelligence.
■■■ The right content for the individual/
team
Eective coaching and giving o eedback is based on
evidence, gathered in a rational, ethical, transparent and
proessional manner; the data gathered is analysed and turned
into inormation, which in turn inorms a knowledge base
relating to the processes in the organisation. Te inormation
and knowledge gathered inorms eedback; eective eedback
should be timely, relevant and rom a credible source. In
terms o lesson observation eedback the observer should
have recorded acts or details which can be reerred to in
the eedback session. An example o such detailed eedback
is the noting o the length o time a particular pupil is o
task or how long a pupil had to wait or support or timing
how long a teaching/input session was.
Very oten even the most reective o colleagues is
surprised that what seemed a well ramed input was
actually longer than expected, planned or needed. In
terms o giving general eedback a sound knowledge o
what is going on in an organisation is a prerequisite to
eective eedback. o act on inaccurate or incomplete
data, inormation and knowledge is not proessional
and may lead to damage being done to individuals,
teams and the wider organisation. It is very difcult to
ensure objectivity in the giving o eedback, especially
in relation to human interaction, but it is incumbent
upon those involved in coaching and eedback to attempt
to be objective, ethical and proessional at all stages o
the process.
■■■ The right content for the organisation
All processes in an organisation should, ideally, be aligned
with the needs o the organisation. o start with the
coaching and the giving o eedback may not be coherent
but ragmented, having weak or no linkage between school
development planning and coaching/eedback. As the use
o eedback becomes more eective the coach should be
able to hold the needs o the organisation in mind and
ensure the work o individual/team is aligned with those
needs. As the skills and capabilities o the coaches improve
urther they will become more procient in understanding
the talents and aspirations o sta and be able to attune
these with the organisation’s climate, culture and methods
o working. Tis process o aligning the work o colleagues
and attuning their aspirations should ensure the use o
eedback generates proessional development that benets
the individual, teams and the organisation.
■■■ The right process for the context
No matter how good one’s coaching and eedback processes
are today, in no time they will become less eective.
Systems and processes that once motivated soon become
de-motivators i they are no longer suitable to a changed
context. A process o review improvement is needed as
evolution not revolution and can help turn a slow moving
school or company into a ‘learning organisation.’
Much of this content is adapted from:
Peter R Taylor, (2007) ‘Motivating Your Team; Coaching
for Performance in Schools’, London: Sage.
Peter R Taylor [email protected]