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Remaining Responsive to Maximize Success

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One of the words that appear to be defining education today is “standards;” most prominent are the Common Core State Standards, but there are also formal standards for teachers and the ISLLC standards for educational leaders. Hand in hand with each set of standards, is the word “evaluation,” closely tied to “accountability.” Together, these present a formidable set of challenges and expectations.  How we respond as professionals will define the future of education. Will we hide behind old and comfortable practices, hoping that, as has so often been the case, “this too shall pass”? Will we comply to get by, adjusting appearances to match what we come to understand things should look like? Will we appreciate the cognitive dissonance presented by a trinity of new standards (learning- teaching-leading), take a proactive stance, and contextualize this as an opportunity to focus on our own and others' learning?  How will we respond?  How will you respond?

Standards, evaluation, and accountability, taken as individual events, add additional layers of stress and discomfort to what can already feel complex and burdensome. However, shift the context just a bit, and these standards and evaluation become integrated pieces of a larger learning system…and, like other systems, require feedback as a key ingredient to success. Reframing mandates and expectations as opportunities, remembering why we are here, and staying committed to improving learning, are strategies that can enable us to move from a focus on surviving the changes to purposefully using them to help us thrive.

Feedback…so much depends on it.  Feedback loops provide opportunities to intervene in a system. They are the stuff that successive approximations and mid-course corrections are made of. Feedback is central to formative assessment. Without feedback, the goal-setting process becomes hit or miss, an exercise in goal identification and re- identification. Feedback flags needs, allowing fine-tuning of a sound system or performance, identification of appropriate differentiation strategies or next steps in lessons, adjustments in anesthesia during an operation, changes in prosecution or defense approaches, maintenance of investment portfolios through stock purchases or sales.

Failing to pay attention to feedback - or failing to provide it in a timely manner - pretty much ensures failure.  Systems dynamics, and history, teach us this.

At a time when we in education could easily become distracted by a focus on summative assessment and related evaluation and accountability, it seems important to ask that wetake a moment to remember what we know about a balanced assessment system. The three components of a balanced assessment system - diagnostic, formative, and summative assessment - are actually in balance by virtue of one key inequity: that formative assessments far outweigh the combined use of diagnostic and summative assessment. It is during these formative assessment moments that most feedback is generated – and the resulting, feedback-inspired thinking and revisions operate as scaffolds enabling success in the summative/evaluative assessment phase. What do we stand to lose if, in the face of the challenges of implementing new standards and in the name of evaluation and accountability, we do not make the needed time and space to give and receive feedback?

Feedback from formative assessment is bidirectional, and it is important to purposefully design time for both the expressive and receptive types – time to provide feedback to others as they move along with their learning and work, and time to seek feedback from others on the relative effectiveness of our own strategies and actions. Every teacher has opportunities to design classroom-based, formative assessment moments that provide feedback to students about the degree to which their behavior, learning, and work are meeting expectations or standards. Similarly, they can give feedback to one another on aspects of teaching practice. However, they can also structure the same kinds of specific formative moments to gather feedback from students and colleagues about the degree to which their implemented processes and strategies are effectively moving student learning toward the acquisition of standards. Likewise, principals and other administrators can provide feedback to one another and to teachers.  They can also glean feedback from these same constituencies about the potential and real effect of their policies, leadership practices, and decisions. What moments have you built into your daily or weekly routine to gather feedback? When have you designed moments for providing feedback to others, or for seeking feedback from them?

Feedback is a proactive intervention, garnering information that supports adjustments, reflection and responsibility.  By virtue of the fact that it is “feedback” and not “correction,” the receiver retains the ultimate control over – and responsibility for – deciding what to do with it. To maintain this, a key attribute has to do with timing. For feedback to be useful, there must be time to use it – so tapping the system to see how we’re doing, or providing feedback to others must be followed by enough time for it to be absorbed, responded to, and applied. Being strategic about timing can greatly increase both value and effect. Asking for or giving feedback during planning stages can provide insights about potential pitfalls before they occur, while feedback sought or provided during implementation can spark revisions that improve efficiency and quality. Much less worthwhile is feedback that comes too far into a process to be useful in averting disaster or promoting excellence. Comments on a graded paper or formal observation occur too late to be “proactive,” and it is no surprise that the nearer something is to completion – whether it be the design of a unit, a writing assignment, or a strategic plan – the less likely a formative review is requested. At the culmination stage, approval may be desired, reinforcement may be sought – but rarely is formative feedback perceived as useful.

There just isn’t time to utilize it at that point. How can you broker opportunities to give and receive feedback at times that maximize its usefulness?

The purpose and content of feedback also influence its effectiveness. Feedback can be centered on processes, performances, or products as well as attitudes, dispositions, or behaviors. When its purpose is to support refinement and improvement and it is respectfully given, even the most difficult realizations are tempered by the understanding that the intention is to promote growth. Formative feedback that is guided by specific quality criteria or expectations tends to be more specific and easier to use in making improvements. One or two guiding questions can also help to increase focus, narrowing the scope of the feedback and allowing for more efficient use. If you were to ask for feedback on your plan for supporting the integration of the Common Core State Standards, what questions would most help you to consider ways of streamlining or maximizing the success of your plan?

The best feedback provides the recipient, whether student or adult, with access to perspectives that are different from their own, offering connections, questions and ideas that push their thinking, give a glimpse of how what they are working on looks and feels outside of their own head, and inspire them to new levels of achievement. Seeking out those who stand to be most affected by what we are working on can provide a key perspective, as can gathering feedback from those who are skeptical, as well as those who are supportive. Any feedback that we receive will be limited by the degree to which we have tapped a range of perspectives.

Today, building in opportunities to give and receive feedback on learning and work related to new standards, new expectations, and new requirements can neither be dismissed nor accepted as optional. Students, teachers, principals, and district-level administrators, parents, service providers, state and national policymakers, and the business community need to create purposeful and timely opportunities for formative feedback in order to monitor decisions, adjust actions, and remain focused on what is important – students and their learning. Who will be most affected by the plans that you have made for implementing some aspect of the changes that are happening? Whose perspective is most like your own?  Whose are most different?  Who might be most skeptical about your plan? What could you learn from formative feedback that would better ensure the success of what you are planning to do?

We are undoubtedly in the throes of major educational change. Our educational process, policy, standards, evaluation protocols, assessment tools and the very context and purpose of our educational system are all undergoing significant and simultaneous revamping. How we respond to the challenges presented by this change will have an indelible effect on both the process and ultimate results.  It can be so easy to be distracted by the pressures and the pulls, so easy to point fingers and lay blame…at people, finances, the change itself. In times such as these, feedback loops that include all who are experiencing the change are critical.  Where is the place for formative feedback in our current educational change initiative? How do we maintain open communication between and among the changes we are making (whether new learning, teaching or leadership standards, and assessments; a new, authentic context for education; or new evaluation processes and protocols), and remain responsive to the effects that those changes are having on the educational system as a whole?