Giving Students Voice: Conferencing Feedback

Students need to have voice in the classroom. Of course, there’re many different ways that this can be achieved and I’ve found that student feedback is one medium that provides them with this opportunity.

Ever since my first year as a teacher, I’ve sought feedback from my students. Over time, I’ve refined this process and have simplified the questions that I ask. Moreover, I also seek feedback more frequently than I did in the past (though that’s a blog post for another time). Getting feedback from students can be a vulnerable process, but we need to be vulnerable as teachers when we engage in this process; not every student is going to like that cool lesson we designed, that thoughtful assignment that took hours to create won’t resonate with all, and, for a whole host of other reasons, some strategies will simply fall flat with some students. 

Despite these facts, it’s important that we get adequate feedback so that we can make changes to potential blind spots in our teaching and, more importantly, so that we let our learners know that we value their voice.

Yet for anyone who has sought feedback from their users, you already know that their responses are often as diverse as they are: some students loved assignment A, some students thought assignment A was boring; some students want more time to read as a class; some want more time for independent reading; some find group work productive, some hate group work. Upon receiving this type of feedback, it can be hard to determine our next steps as teachers. We want to know our learners and seek their input so that we can continue to grow as educators by ensuring that we meet the needs and interests of our diverse students. Yet this can be hard to do when their needs are, themselves, so diverse.

With that in mind, you can imagine that I was a little nervous when seeking feedback for my recent unit conferencing. Ok, I’ll be honest, I was worried. I was worried that students wouldn’t value a process that I’ve already committed moving towards. If they didn’t, how could I continue to move in that same direction while also claiming that I valued student input; a lot was at stake!

Of course, I knew that this change was valuable. I knew that it gave students voice. And I knew that it allowed them to demonstrate their learning. However, my perceptions as a teacher are not always that of my students. Did my students genuinely feel, as I did, that this process had value? Time to be vulnerable…

In all of the feedback that I’ve sought over my career, none have been so unanimous as the responses I received from unit conferencing. In my ‘research’ I polled 46 students from three classes and asked them two basic questions; “do you feel that unit conferencing aids in your learning?” and “would you prefer more conventional assessments, such as a unit test, over a unit conference?”. As I continue my journey with conferencing, I’ll aim for more specific feedback into the process, but at this point, I simply wanted to know if they thought that the time and energy being spent into this type of assessment was useful.

Out of the 46 students, one student said no, one responded with a period (there’s always one, amirite?), which I assumed to mean indifference, and another said that they already knew themselves as a learner. If we disregard the indifferent responses, 97% of students, 43 in total, felt that unit conferencing helped them realize their strengths as learners and their next steps towards mastery; wow, decisive!

For the second question, the results were just as juicy conclusive. Only two students responded that they prefer traditional assessments. Two others were indifferent, and one valued both types of assessment while 41/46 preferred unit conferencing over unit tests. I’ve already long since done away with tests and quizzes (another blog post!?) but these results were astounding. Again, disregarding the indifferences, 95% of students prefer conferencing to traditional assessments.

Needless to say, these results were reassuring. The responses confirmed what I knew as a teacher and reinforced how they felt as students. If feedback indicates the changes that should be made or the direction that should be taken, then set my course for more conferencing. To grow as educators, we need to seek input from our users and we need to give them a voice in our classrooms. With that in mind, the “people” have spoken; students value conferencing over traditional assessments.

 

Follow and tweet @Bjeblack and let’s have a conversation about student feedback!