[MUSIC] Hello everybody. In this session, we're talking about feedback for minorities. What are minority perspectives on feedback? During this week, we talked about feedback being very much part of the teaching process. We need feedback, feedback is very much important for learning, for finding out how students are doing, and for looking back at what we need to do to improve. And, it's important that feedback is given to all students, including minority students. There's certainly never a case when we're not going to give feedback to our students. Now, one of the issues we need to think about, is when we've got classrooms that have a number of minority students, what are the appropriate ways and what are the things that we need to consider when it comes to giving feedback to minority students. It may turn out that, in some cases, there may be preferred ways of giving feedback. And, it may turn out that there may be culturally appropriate ways of giving feedback to students of particular minorities. When it comes to negative feedback, in many examples of many cases, minority groups may not prefer that feedback - paticularly that feedback that may be less than positive - be delivered in a group situation. It may be much more appropriate that feedback - that is not as positive as we'd like it to be, but certainly needs to be done - needs to be given to an individual and, not in a group setting or in front of their peers. It may be appropriate that feedback be given in a manner that is less direct and less appearing to be a confrontational. There may be culturally appropriate ways to give that feedback. One of the things that also we need to think about, when it comes to feedback particularly for minorities, what aspects of feedback might minority students be interested in, in terms of their performance within school. Quiet often, feedback is focused on academic subjects, numeracy, literacy, reading, writing, mathematics and other subjects. For many minority groups, it is also important to give feedback on how students are interacting with their peers. Are they interacting in culturally appropriate ways? Are they taking in to consideration others? And, this is important. Also, when it comes to giving feedback for minority students, there is a requirement that teachers be conscious of issues for minority students. It would be ideal that our teachers have a good knowledge of the languages and the cultures of the classrooms. In some cases that is possible. For example, in New Zealand, all of our teachers are required to know something about Maori language and Maori culture. That is part of their teacher education process, and if they aren't very familiar with the language and the culture, there's certainly a lot of opportunities where teachers can go and learn about Maori language and culture. Quite often, there may be other teachers within the school or within the community, that can be drawn on for support for those teachers that may not have a great exposure to Maori language or Maori culture. Ideally, we'd like teachers to be familiar with all of our minorities but, obviously, given the large number of minorities that some of our major urban areas have, that's not possible. In some cases, we do have access to resources to learn about those minorities, about their cultural practices, about ways of doing things. But, more importantly perhaps, it's important that our teachers are cognizant, are aware that they're dealing with students that they may not have a great deal of knowledge of, they need to consider how their feedback is being given. Is it effective? Perhaps it's not being effective. Perhaps there needs to be some form of change. Fundamentally, when it comes to feedback, it's important that feedback is given to individuals. It's often occasions where it's necessary to give feedback to particular groups. And, in some cases, in the case of Maori culture, in the case of many of our Pacific cultures, it's important to give feedback as a group and, it's often more appropriate to give group feedback before individual feedback has been given. In many cases, parents and other educators are interested in what types of feedback and how feedback is being given to their students or those within their own communities. And, in some cases, parents and community members actually have the opportunity to go and go to their classrooms and schools, and sit in on teaching sessions, and look at how feedback is been given to students, and provide input into that particular process. And that's something that we need to conscious of, that perhaps our minorities would like to have access to what's going on in our classroom. An example of one particular group where feedback is very important, is the Maori population in New Zealand and the Maori ethnic group, comprising around about 14% of the total population. Most students are learning through the medium of English. Quite often, for those schools that teach a large number of Maori students, those schools, the principals and the teachers are very keen on engaging Maori parents and those within the Maori community. And, they will quite often set up meetings and appropriate gatherings where parents, where community members can actually discuss what is going on in the classroom and also, look at having involvement in their actual student, with their students, with their children within classroom settings. And in this case, it's very important that from the schools perspective, from the teachers perspective, that parents, community members, can actually be involved in what's going on in terms of how feedback's being used within the classroom - how it's being provided to individuals, how it's being provided to groups. And, in the case for New Zealand, we have assessment resources that can provide direct and individual feedback for students that are both learning in the medium of Maori, and those Maori students that are learning in the medium of English. And, quite often, what happens in the New Zealand context, is that schools will provide opportunities for parents, for community members to come and have a look at the feedback that has been given to individual students on how they're learning, how they are progress is, and what needs to happen next. And, quite often schools will attempt to do this in culturally appropriate settings, in terms of providing an environment, providing a meeting space that is at a time, that is run according to protocols which Maori community members do feel comfortable with. So, it's very important for the Maori community, that both parents, community members and teachers do know what is happening in terms of the feedback that's being provided to their students - not just for those students that are learning in the medium of Maori, but also, for those, the majority of students that are learning in the medium of English. So, feedback is something that is fundamental to the education process and we certainly need to consider the needs of the minorities when it comes to feedback. Are we giving feedback in a culturally appropriate manner? Thank you. [MUSIC]
