Student Feedback is Priceless

Posted on May 11, 2012 by Brad

 

 

How often do you seek your students’ feedback: each semester, weekly, after each class?

 

In the same vein of thought, when I blogged about the four key factors affecting the business of ELT elearning, one of my main points addressed “collaboration”, and how “materials improvement can now occur in collaboration with teachers and learners which is revolutionary for small companies like Edulang”.

Here’s a perfect example:  this past month I’ve been collaborating with a group of software engineering students at SUPINFO, a well-known school in France.

Yohan, one of the group leaders, and a number of his classmates used English Addicts and Test Simulator for a few weeks and they then sent us a number of powerpoints sharing their feedback in detailed notes/screen captures. They were constructive, pointing out what they felt to be our strengths, and then underlining other areas where they felt we could improve, citing both their expertise as English learners and Software developers.

 

 

Feedback is precious and we should be proactive about seeking it out, both as teachers, learners, materials developers… heck, everyone!  And finally, thanks again to the SUPINFO students again for their time and reflections.

Long live the 21st century and collaboration!!!

 

 

 

 

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  • http://twitter.com/epicenterone Aaron Nelson

    You’re totally right – he who dares to teach, must never cease to learn. Learning also comes from getting feedback from your students. I try to get feedback from students on a regular basis, but I will be more intentional about this. Feedback is so valuable. If you don’t get enough of it, you just assume you’re doing a good job – and that’s simply not good enough. Thanks for helping me think about this important topic today Brad! 

  • http://blog.edulang.com/ Brad Patterson

    Hey Aaron.  Always glad to hear your thoughts here.  Reminds me of the story of the Blind men and the elephant… we each know our own context, see with our own perspective, but there are always many, and of course our students’ point-of-view is a very, very important one.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephant

    Cheers!

  • http://www.linkinenglish.com/ David

    Totally agree – though not necessarily in the same way as others.

    Verbal feedback is great in that it helps create a dialogue with students.

    Watching how they ACT is even better. For example, I once had a student who said they ‘really, really’ needed to improve their presentation skills, and within a few months too. It was a number 1 priority.

    I got the best book on the market for presentations,  and proposed we spend the following 8 lessons just on this. Eight whole lessons to look at delivery, key phrases, handling questions, organisation, and so on. I had extra materials and activities, and special questions for homework.

    What happened?

    I barely saw this student again. While they ‘wanted’ to do presentations, they were probably afraid or nervous about the whole thing, and what I proposed was not for someone who wasn’t ready to leave their comfort zones.

    It was a fascinating experience.

    Teaching successfully comes with time and practice, and involves being a coach in some way, borrowing ideas from the self-development & life coaching fields.

    That’s why feedback is great to get a dialogue happening, but feedback includes seeing how people act and react to the course.

  • http://blog.edulang.com/ Brad Patterson

    Great point, David.  Thanks for stopping by and sharing!

    There can be no separation from feedback that we actively collect, and that which we passively observe.  At the same time, I still do find value in providing space for students to share their thoughts in a more reflective way, as all the experience in the world can’t put us completely in their shoes and as you said, there’s always something to be learned.

    Interesting anecdote of yours, the presentation one.  Makes me think of this meme: we want what we can’t have, and when we get it, we don’t want it anymore…

    Cheers, Brad

  • http://www.linkinenglish.com/ Ds

     Yeah, there’s something there.

    At my last school feedback was promoted to find out more about what students think about the courses, to have that dialogue eg if they said they wanted more grammar or complained about the lack of grammar (this was a common complaint regardless of the teacher), we were encouraged to explain more to students why were doing things like collocations and having more interaction in class instead.

    Part of this came about because of the different expectations they had from having a completely different approach to language learning at high school.

    So , yes, feedback is good – usually the students appreciate the dialogue.

  • http://www.mosaicli.ca/ Mariz

     Yes indeed! Students feedback feels so overwhelming especially when they appreciate all your hard work and saying it help them and at some point change their way of life in a good way of course. It only shows your teaching method was effective.

  • http://blog.edulang.com/ Brad Patterson

    Thanks for stopping by, Mariz!

    Yes, the positive feedback always feels good… and it’s the negative feedback (or constructive feedback) that helps us grow too… all with a pinch of salt, too.

  • http://blog.edulang.com/ Brad Patterson

    I think ‘dialogue’ is the key word as allowing that expression many times is 1/2 of the solution to many problems that may occur otherwise.  

    Isn’t it so surprising when students say they want more grammar.  Of course it depends on the particular context, but that always makes me smile, as it might be the last thing we expect, but there is value in presenting material in different ways and working with students’ requests/expectations.

    Cheers 4 the convo, David!

  • http://twitter.com/irishmikeh Mike Hogan

    Hi Brad,
    Nice post and great for stimulating thought on the subject of feedback, as the other commenters have written. Yes, dialogue is the key. I also believe that we should encourage an atmosphere in which learners can give what they may perceive as critical or negative feedback without fear of the teacher/trainer losing face. At the end of a seminar or course I always ask my learners to tell me one thing I can improve on in my style, delivery, approach, etc. I encourage them to do so without fear of losing/taking face by saying that without such feedback I can’t get better at what I do, so in fact they are helping me.
    I think that just like our learners, we too should never stop learning and improving.
    It’s great that they were open enough to give you the good feeback you shared above, … and maybe some points for improvement, too? :-)

    Mike

  • http://blog.edulang.com/ Brad Patterson

    Great point. Framing it as “help me BECAUSE your point-of-view counts and helps” is so much more engaging than “tell me what you think, or how can I improve” even when said in the nicest way.  Soft skills.  Tip of the hat, Mike!