Abstracts

====**Kilbourn, B., Keating, K., Murray, K., and Ross, I. (2005). Balancing Feedback and Inquiry: How Novice Observers (Supervisors) Learn from Inquiry into Their Own Practice, //Journal of Curriculum and Supervision Vol 20, Number 4//, 298-318**==== Feedback is an essential component and instrument of learning in many professions. In the educational field, an efficient and experienced supervisor can provide high-quality, constructive feedback to teachers based on lesson observation. In addition, an experienced supervisor can also help teachers become reflective practitioners. Teachers ultimately need to be self-monitoring; they cannot be solely dependent on other observers. The more a teacher is able to effectively examine their own teaching, the more effective their teaching will become. The same is true for supervisors. To develop constructive feedback skills and to nurture the practice of teacher reflection, supervisors, especially novice observers, need to be actively involved in the inquiry process. They need to constantly reflect on how effective they are in promoting teacher analysis of instructional strategies and lesson design. The three novice observers (supervisors) in this article provided constructive feedback to a colleague whose class they had observed. They tape-recorded the sessions and analyzed the transcripts based on three questions: What did I intend to happen? What actually happened and why? And, what might I have done differently? All three novice observers struggled at times to balance the feedback and inquiry aspects of the discussion and often found themselves merely giving advice. This is understandable given an observer's genuine desire to be helpful. In addition, during the observations, each observer collected a lot of data and therefore felt they could, and should, provide a lot of feedback. This led to a shift in the tone of the feedback towards more traditional supervision. In todays educational environment, the time available for observer and teacher to engage in real reflective inquiry is minimal and can result again in a shift towards a more traditional, ‘results-now’ approach. All these factors can make the skills necessary to provide high quality constructive feedback difficult to learn and put into practice. The three novice observers experienced frustrations at not being able to promote ‘real inquiry’, but felt the act of trying to provide constructive feedback helped their colleagues understand and improve their teaching.

I agree with the basic premise of this article. Quality feedback is essential for personal growth. I also agree with the suggestion that one role of supervisors is to try and promote the attitude of self-examination and reflection in teachers. As the proverb goes, “give a person a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a person to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” This captures the intent of the inquiry process, which is to help teachers better understand their own teaching so they may be more prepared to improve it. Without this self-analysis it is difficult to see how teachers can grow professionally and adjust their instructional strategies to the ever-changing needs of the student. As well as providing quality feedback, supervisors need to encourage the teachers to ask these tough questions after every lesson: Did the lesson work? What could I have done differently? Where was student learning most successful? Where are the students struggling to learn and why? Ultimately if a supervisor can move a teacher towards self-examination through a collaborative relationship, they can directly influence the effectiveness of the instructional practice in the classroom which some people might suggest is the most important aspect of any educational system.

__**Notes**__

If teachers can treat teaching as an inquiry process, they will come to better understand their teaching, the effects it has on student learning, and hopefully will be able to see how they can improve their instructional strategies

An important instructional strategies is to provide students with an opportunity to reflect on their learning (Wiggins, Tomlinson). The same holds true for teachers and supervisors.

high-quality, constructive feedback is an essential component and instrument of learning in a variety of professions

Teachers are nervous about feedback process

feedback is often been categorical views of 'good teaching' imposed on teachers without regard for the unique qualities of the particular situation

How do we give genuinely constructive feedback? Learning the process of giving constructive feedback is a critical hurdle for the process to be effective. Skills are tuned with experience, but experience is not enough, an attitude of //inquiry// to monitor the skill development and growth is important

If learning the process is treated by novice supervisors as a matter of personal inquiry rather than just mechanically following a set of predetermined procedures, novices may beable to provide better constructive feedback. If the process is studied probability it may become better understood

Constructive Feedback - balance between two central components 1. unambiguous, straight feedback based on evidence - transcript supplemented with educational notes 2. help the teacher assume an attitude of inquiry in monitoring their their own pedagogical practice

1. focus on observable patterns of teacher-student interaction and their connection to student learning/well being, what is happening and is it helping acheiving the pre-determined goal? Avoids supervisor personal predjudices about good teaching. Improvement is seen as a matter of qualitative inquiry (more detail included)

2. moves towards making the teacher independently self-monitoring, supervisor helps the teacher adopt the view that teaching can be 'improved by reflective inquiry', the more a teacher examines their own teaching, the more effective the teaching will become.

Balance between two is often dependent on situation. Novice teachers often crave advice and may not have developed the skills to interpret the teaching act. But if feedback is to be truely/genuinely constructive, it is the supervisors role to promote and encourage growth in self-monitoring and movement away from outside observer analysis

Just as supervisors tries to promote inquiry with teacher, then the same applies to the supervisors. They should approach the process of constructive feedback by examing the objectives, success, effect of the process

teachers need to be self-monitoring rather than dependent on observers. If teachers can treat teaching as an inquiry process, they will come to better understand their teaching, the effects it has on learning, and will be more prepared to improve it. The process assumes that teachers are the ones who are ultimately accountable and, consequently, should take responsibility for monitoring their own teaching.The supervisors role is to help the teacher learn to reflect on the data of teaching.