Teachers need real feedback Bill Gates

everyone needs a coach it doesn’t matter

whether you’re a basketball player a

tennis player a gymnast or a bridge

player my bridge coach

Sharon osburgh says there are more

pictures of the back of her head than

anyone else is in the world

sorry Ferran there you go

we all need people who will give us

feedback that’s how we improve

unfortunately

there’s one group of people who get

almost no systematic feedback to help

them do their jobs better and these

people have one of the most important

jobs in the world I’m talking about

teachers when Melinda and I learned how

little useful feedback most teachers get

we were blown away until recently over

98% of teachers just got one word of

feedback satisfactory if all my bridge

coach ever told me was that I was

satisfactory I would have no hope of

ever getting better how would I know who

is the best how would I know what I was

doing differently today districts are

revamping the way they evaluate teachers

but we still give them almost no

feedback that actually helps them

improve their practice our teachers

deserve better the system we have today

isn’t fair to them it’s not there to

students and it’s putting America’s

global leadership at risk so today I

want to talk about how we can help all

teachers get the tools for improvement

they want and deserve let’s start by

asking who’s doing well well

unfortunately there’s no international

ranking tables for teacher feedback

systems so I looked at the countries

whose students perform well academically

and looked at what they’re doing to help

their teachers improve

consider the rankings for reading

proficiency the US isn’t number one

we’re not even in the top 10 we’re tied

for 15th with Iceland and Poland now out

of all the places that do better than

the US and reading how many of them have

a formal system for helping teachers

improve 11 out of 14 the u.s. is tied

for 15th and reading but we’re 23rd in

science and 31st and math so there’s

really only one area where we’re near

the top and that’s in failing to give

our teachers to help they need to

develop their skills let’s look at the

best academic performer the province of

Shanghai China

now they ranked number one across the

board in reading math and science and

one of the keys to Shanghai’s incredible

success is the way they help teachers

keep improving they make sure that

younger teachers get to a chance to

watch master teachers at work they have

weekly study groups where teachers get

together and talk about what’s working

they even require each teacher to

observe and give feedback to their

colleagues you might ask why is the

system like this so important it’s

because there’s so much variation in the

teaching profession some teachers are

far more effective than others in fact

there are teachers throughout the

country or helping their students make

extraordinary gains if today’s average

teacher could become as good as those

teachers our students would be blowing

away the rest of the world so we need a

system that helps all our teachers be as

good as the best what would that system

look like well to find out our

foundation has been working with 3,000

teachers in districts across the country

on a project called measures of

effective teaching

we had observers watch videos of

teachers in the classroom and rate how

they did on a ring

practices for example did they ask their

students challenging questions did they

find multiple ways to explain an idea we

also had students fill out surveys with

questions like does your teacher know

when the class understands a lesson do

you learn to correct your mistakes and

what we found is very exciting first the

teachers who did well on these

observations had far better student

outcomes so it tells us we’re asking the

right questions and second teachers in

the program told us that these videos

and these surveys from the students were

very helpful diagnostic tools because

they pointed to specific places where

they can improve I’m gonna show you what

this video component of mat looks like

in action today to get started doing a

peer-review day okay a peer-review day

and our goal by the end of class is for

you to be able to determine whether or

not you have moves to prove in your

essays my name is Sarah Brown Wessling

I am a high school English teacher at

Johnston High School in Johnston Iowa

turn to somebody next to you tell them

what you think I mean when I talk about

moves to prove I’ve talked I think that

there is a difference for teachers

between the abstract of how we see our

practice and then the concrete reality

of it okay please bring up your papers I

think what video offers for us is a

certain degree of reality you can’t

really dispute what you see on the video

and there is a lot to be learned from

that and there’s a lot of ways that we

can grow as a profession when we

actually get to see this I just have a

flip camera and a little tripod and

vested in us tiny little wide-angle lens

at the beginning of class I just perch

it in the back of the classroom it’s not

a perfect shot it doesn’t catch every

little thing that’s going on but I can

hear the sound I can see a lot and I’m

able to learn a lot from it so it really

has been a simple but powerful tool in

my

reflection alright let’s take a look at

the long one first okay once I’m

finished taping then I put it in my

computer and then I’ll scan it and you

know take a peek at it if I don’t write

things down I don’t remember them so

having the notes as part of my thinking

process and I discover what I’m seeing

as I’m writing I really have used it for

my own personal growth and my own

personal reflection on teaching strategy

and methodology and classroom management

and just all of those different facets

of of the classroom I’m glad that we’ve

actually done the process before so we

can kind of compare what works what

doesn’t so I think that video exposes so

much of what’s intrinsic to us as

teachers in ways that help us learn and

help us understand and then help our

broader communities understand what this

complex work is really all about I think

it is a way to exemplify and illustrate

things that we cannot convey in a lesson

plan things you cannot convey in a

standard things that you cannot even

sometimes convey in a in a book of

pedagogy

one day we’d like every classroom in

America to look something like that but

we still have more work to do diagnosing

areas where a teacher needs to improve

is only half the battle we also have to

give them the tools they need to act on

the diagnosis if you learn that you need

to improve the way you teach fractions

you should be able to watch a video of

the best person in the world teaching

fractions so building this complete

teacher feedback and improvement system

won’t be easy for example I know some

teachers aren’t immediately comfortable

with the idea of a camera in the

classroom that’s understandable but our

experience have met suggest that if

teachers manage the process if they

collect video in their own classrooms

and they pick the lessons they want to

submit a lot of them will be eager to

participate building the system will

also require a considerable investment

our foundation estimates that it could

cost up to five billion dollars now

that’s a big number but to put it in

perspective it’s less than two percent

of what we spend every year on teacher

salaries the impact for teachers would

be phenomenal we would finally have a

way to give them feedback as well as the

means to act on it but this system would

have an even more important benefit for

our country I would put us on a path to

making sure all our students get a great

education find a career that’s

fulfilling and rewarding and have a

chance to live out their dreams this

wouldn’t just make us a more successful

country it would also make us a more

fair and just one - I’m excited about

the opportunity to give all our teachers

the support they want and deserve I hope

you are - thank you