What I did when students didn't feel comfortable in my room!

Hola hola hola:

Teaching is hard. Last week was one of the roughest weeks in my career as a teacher aside from my first year. There were so many emotions in our building from staff and students, and it was just so hard to not get discouraged.

I had one class in particular that was giving me a hard time—not because they were bad but because I could NOT get them to answer any of my questions.

They did the work that I asked them to do; they were very very compliant. But I don't want compliant learners. I am not okay with that in my classroom. I want my students to always go above and beyond.

WHAT WAS HAPPENING?
Well, as I said, they were not answering my questions. Some might think, "Oh, perhaps they are not understanding the Spanish." NOPE. They were not answering my questions in English most of the time either! I tried to convince myself that they are all just shy kids, but I have had plenty of shy kids in the past, so I didn't have myself convinced.

THE REALITY: 

I talked to an amazing teacher, Toni Ciaccia, at my school, and she told me the honest truth. She said, "well, when kids aren't answering my questions, it usually means that they don't feel safe to answer the questions." This hit me like a BOMB! Not because I couldn't believe it, but because I realized in that moment that Toni was right; I had not created a safe enough environment for this class.

WHAT I DID NEXT:

You all know me, and I love research-based practices, so I did some research on creating a safe environment. A lot of the stuff I had already been doing: lots of brain breaks, lots of games, etc. 

So what WASN'T I doing? Well, I wasn't being patient enough; when they weren't answering my questions, I was getting visibly annoyed that they weren't answering me, and that (obviously) just was making matters worse. 

I came up with some strategies that have worked wonders for me so far. First and foremost, I wanted to give the students a voice. I always tell them on the first day of school that I want them to call me out if I am being unreasonable, but 6th graders are just not comfortable doing that. 

So, I gave the students a survey that included a few questions: 

1. Do you feel nervous to speak Spanish in class?
2. Is there someone in class who makes you feel nervous to participate? 
3. Do you feel unsafe answering questions because you don't know your classmates well enough?
4. Do I make you feel unsafe or uncomfortable? 
5. What can I do to make you feel more comfortable? 
6. Is there something I could be better at? 
7. Is there something else that you want me to know?

These questions helped so much because the feedback was way more positive than I thought it would be, but it showed the students that I am willing to admit my imperfections and address problems head on. 

THE SIGNALS: 

Two students said in the survey that they felt like I was a little impatient with them (which is something I told them that I was working on), so I created a signal for them when they feel like I am impatient and one for when they do not understand.

When the students do not understand something I say, I asked them to wiggle their fingers on their shoulders. I NEED them to do this because it's impossible to acquire a language if they cannot focus on the meaning, so this is my way of getting them to express to me that they do not understand. But here's the important aspect: I asked every student in the class to wiggle their fingers on their shoulders any time they see someone else doing it. This way, the whole class is doing it, so no one really knows who started it. It's just a signal for me to know that someone in the class needs more guidance. 

I also created a signal for when they think I am being unreasonable (they stomp their feet). This is a way for me to check myself, but I am hoping that they never have to use this signal! I think that this is important because I do think that it's necessary for students to learn that it's okay to question authority when appropriate. I am not a dictator, and I am not right all the time, so I need them to feel comfortable expressing their concerns to me. 

TURN AND TALKS: 

This is basically teaching 101, but I needed a reminder of its power. In my classes—especially the class that wasn't answering my questions—I am trying to give them more opportunities to turn and talk to a classmate about their answers before calling on students. This way, they get a little more practice and reassurance before having to speak in front of other students.

SEAT CHANGES: 

Since this class was struggling with energy, I decided to give them new seats. I told them that I wasn't doing it because I thought they deserved it, but rather because they NEEDED it. I was honest and said that I am looking for waaaaaay more energy from them, and this change also made a HUGE difference!

I am really happy so far with how things worked out; I hope it just gets better and better throughout the year.

Timothy

The Importance of Getting Feedback FROM Students

Hola hola:

We give our students feedback on a daily basis in our classrooms with our opening activities, assessments, quizzes, classroom conversations, etc. They are so used to getting feedback from us, but how often do we elicit feedback from them? And I mean TRUE feedback.

At my last school, it was a requirement for teachers to give a course evaluation every year at the end of the year. However, it was basically a fill in the bubble thing for most of us with very little to no opportunities for students to write open-ended feedback.

I think that a lot of people do some type of feedback at the end of the year, but I think that the end of the year is too late. 

When I was doing an evaluation at the end of the year, school was already over! If we can improve on something, don't we want to know about it before the year has come to an end?

Feedback from students about teacher surveys:

At the end of every term (there are 3 at my school), I give my students a mostly open-ended feedback form for them to fill out about me on Google Forms. This way, it can be anonymous, and I can get real feedback. 

I worked with some of my 8th graders this year to help me perfect this form. Here were some of the things the students said about surveys they've taken about teachers in the past:

1. If it is not open ended, then we are not giving the feedback that we want. If the question is something like "Do you feel like your teachers respect you? 4     3     2    1," the students said it makes it really hard for them to answer. One student said, "one of my teachers doesn't respect us, but the rest do, so what do I put? A 4? A 3?" I think that this is a valid point. 

2. The other reason for having open-ended questions is so that students can bring up topics that we might not even be considering. They said that there are specific things a teacher might do like mumble but most questions aren't "Do I mumble too much?" so how are they going to give that feedback if there's nowhere for them to write it? 

My teacher evaluation form:

Here are some important elements that I think make a good feedback form for a teacher:

1. It has to be anonymous. If it is not, students will not be honest. They will be afraid to criticize their teacher knowing that they have months left in the class. 

2. It has to have a lot of open-ended questions (as mentioned above). 

3. It has to have a way for students to reflect on their own effort in the course as well. Students agreed with me that sometimes they don't learn a lot in a course but don't always blame the teacher because they don't always do what they are supposed to. 

4. You have to remind the students over and over that they need to be honest. Otherwise, the feedback is useless. 

5. The questions cannot all be about academics. Social emotional learning is just as important. 

Here is the feedback form for me as a teacher that I developed this year with the help of some 8th graders: 

Sample Teacher Feedback Form

Here is a quick overview of the questions:

1. How do you feel this year is going for you in Spanish class? 

2. What are your strengths in this class?

3. What are you struggling with in class (if anything)?

4. Is the pace of the class too slow, too fast, or just right?

5. Do you feel you are learning in this class?

6. Do you feel like I am clear of my expectations, assignments, and grading? 

7. Do you feel like we talk about real things in this class or do you feel like it's a lot of grammar practice?

8. Do you feel like I care about your education and want you to acquire as much Spanish as possible? 

9. Do you feel like I care about my students, their lives, and their progress? 

10. Do the proficiency levels (Novice High, Intermediate Low, etc.) help you know how to improve?

11. Is there anything that I should do more of? Less of? Why?

12. What can I do to be a better teacher? Please be honest. This truly is helpful and anonymous.

13. Do you feel comfortable expressing when you do not understand what something means? 

14. Then students rate themselves on effort, classroom behavior, organization, quality of work, and checking the online gradebook for assignments. 

15. Lastly, they make a goal for improvement. 

DISCLAIMER: These evaluations can be hard to read:

It is NEVER easy to read negative feedback about yourself, and it is hard to focus on the good--even if it wayyyyy outweighs the bad. However, this is way more important than our egos. If we are not trying to improve our teaching, then we are not doing the best job we can. 

Take the negative comments with a grain of salt; we all have students who don't love us or don't love the way/things we teach. That is SO normal. However, we have to look for patterns. If more than one student is saying the same thing, then it is a problem. There's a difference between, "I hate you. You suck" and "I think that you should work on getting grades back quicker." 

What I learned this year:

After reading my course evaluations, I learned a lot of great stuff about myself as a teacher! Here were some of the amazing comments: 

"i feel like you have a good mind set to help the class grow"

"I feel that I have learned a lot thus far in the year. I have also been able to use some of the Spanish used in class to communicate at home."

"I think you are a great teacher and that the way you teach the class has improved my Spanish speaking a lot."

"NOTHING I TOLD YOU, YOU WERE A PERFECT TEACHER!"

"I feel that I improved a lot from last year and learn a lot quicker in this class"

"I feel really good, I came into Spanish this year and I did not feel confident and was really scared since I was really bad but even in the last 2-3 months I feel like I have learned more than I have last year and feel like in have really grown as a Spanish speaker."

"We talk about lots of real things, and really never work on just grammar sheets. We have pages of cierto falso which help us repeat things we are learning in class by writing them and when someone has a grammar question you can answer it. Otherwise it is not too much grammar practice."

And here were some of the negative ones: 

"Be a bit more patient."

"I think you should be more patient with some kids."

"I feel that you could perhaps be more patient as you seem to get frustrated easily."

"I think you could be less strict when students do or get something wrong. Although you are usually not strict just when you are in a bad mood."

Final Thoughts: 

These are never easy to read, but I had to remind myself just how amazing the positive comments were, and 90% of them were all positive. But, I noticed a pattern. Clearly, a lot of my students were feeling that I was not being patient enough. THIS IS A PROBLEM, and if I did not learn this when I did, the whole year probably would have remained the same. So, I did research on how to keep my patience and have been working hard to make sure that I don't sweat the small stuff anymore.  I told my students that this was a pattern and I promised them to be better about it. Students have said that things have gotten so much better since first term, and that makes me feel a lot better. I cannot wait to see what they say when I give them a feedback form for the end of the second term. 

My main point is: don't be afraid to get feedback from students. It's not always constructive because they're kids, and they don't always know how to be constructive with their criticism, but that doesn't make their opinions any less valid. This is too important to not do. Just re-read all the positive comments as much as you have to in order to help you remember how amazing of a teacher you are, and find patterns of criticism in the not-so-happy comments to help you be even more amazing. 

Keep being amazing,

Timothy