Cultural Concern: Perspectives of minorities on appropriate feedback mechanisms

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From the course by Commonwealth Education Trust

Foundations of Teaching for Learning: Introduction to Student Assessment

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Commonwealth Education Trust

Foundations of Teaching for Learning: Introduction to Student Assessment

80 ratings

The Foundations of Teaching for Learning programme is designed for teachers and educators of all abilities and backgrounds; from those who are new to the classroom and looking for development, to experienced teachers ready to reboot their skills for modern education. With dynamic lessons taught by established and respected professionals from across the Commonwealth, this eight course programme will see you develop and strengthen your skills in teaching, professionalism, assessment, and more. As you carry on through the programme, you will find yourself strengthening not only your professional skills, but your connection with colleagues across the globe. A professional development opportunity not to be missed. There are various techniques which help to assess student learning. This course helps teacher to acquire the skills to develop and use appropriate assessment procedures. Enhance your course by joining the Commonwealth teaching community on our website, Facebook and Twitter.

From the lesson

The nature of feedback in improving teaching and learning

Feedback can vary greatly in its effectiveness. In the lectures this week we will identify the key characteristics of good (and bad) feedback. We will explore the practice of incorporating feedback into teaching. Teachers and students have their own views on what constitutes effective feedback. Understanding these views can help you to decide how you should give feedback to your own students. We will ask you to consider how you can best provide feedback to minority students. By the end of the week you should be able to generate your own examples of effective feedback for students.

Feedback Effectiveness: Hattie & Timperley’s framework; Gan’s Question prompts12:31

Building Feedback into Teaching: Goals/Intentions; Strengths & Weaknesses12:11

Teacher & Student perceptions of feedback9:47

Cultural Concern: Perspectives of minorities on appropriate feedback mechanisms11:00

Interview 113:01

Meet the Instructors

Dr Peter Keegan
Senior Lecturer, Te Puna Wānanga, Faculty of Education
University of Auckland, New Zealand
Associate Professor Gavin Brown
Director, Faculty of Education Quantitative Data Analysis and Research Unit
University of Auckland, New Zealand
Professor John MacBeath
Professor Emeritus
University of Cambridge, UK

[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]

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