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