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March 2008

CLASSROOM COMMUNICATION AND FEEDBACK

It’s the time of year: spring fever is at an all-time high and the motivation to learn isn’t. Keeping your students focused on their goals and keeping yourself in tune with your students’ learning challenges requires constant feedback. We’ve provided some motivational strategies to keep that two-way communication flowing!

Learning – whether by students or by teachers – is a step-by-step process that requires communication, information gathering and feedback.

COMMUNICATION

As a teacher, the burden of communication falls on you, since your students will respond according to your cues, both verbal and nonverbal.

Nonverbal Communication - Students pay attention to the signals you send. Consider these aspects:
- Eye contact. Maintaining eye contact with your students conveys your interest in them.
- Facial expressions. Smile! It conveys friendliness. Raised eyebrows, eye rolls and other gestures can be perceived negatively.
- Gestures. Use your hands when you talk. Nod your head. An animated teacher is much more interesting to watch.
- Position. When upright, walk around the class or move back and forth. When sitting, maintain an open posture (no folded arms). Face your students whenever possible.
- Proximity. While “getting up close and personal” with your class could be beneficial, keep in mind that some students require more “personal space” than others. If you are talking with a student and they back up, won’t maintain eye contact, start tapping their foot, etc., examine your distance from them and back up if needed.

There are learning tools that can provide nonverbal communication, such as the DELUXE YACKER TRACKER® and CHARACTER EDUCATION/CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT POCKET CHART. Students will know immediately if they are too noisy or have broken a classroom rule without any verbal input from you.

Verbal Communication
- Speech. Want to know how you sound to others? Record yourself or ask a colleague to listen in and provide feedback. Do you have enough inflection and expression? Is your voice high-pitched or just right? Is your tone soothing? Your diction clear?
- Humor. Use it. Humor makes you seem more relaxed, and laughter is a wonderful stress reliever for you and your students.
- Thoughtfulness. Think before you speak. This can be one of the hardest challenges in communication. Two people may hear the same thing, yet understand it differently.

INFORMATION GATHERING

One way to receive communication from students is get them involved in activities that allow you to observe their participation and peer interaction. When students are participating, they are communicating (with or without their knowledge) their understanding of the subject. Varying the types of activities allows for the multiple types of learning modalities.

Small-Group Discussion – Utilize tools such as GUIDED READING BEACH BALLS to initiate discussion about a book of your choice.

Case Studies – Providing students with real-life scenarios is a great way to assess their thinking process. Our MATHWORKS! set offers examples of real-life problems professionals encounter every day.

Role Playing – Some students thrive on imagination! Asking them to take on a role can really boost their retention.

Simulations – What better way to emphasize the political process than to have a mock election?

Cooperative Learning – Students work in a small group to complete a task. This can be a short-term project or one that lasts all semester. Our SOCIAL STUDIES ACTIVITY BOOK PACKS provide a great framework for a cooperative-learning project. Each group can choose one country, civilization or era and take time throughout the year to recreate it in the classroom using the crafts, food, games, etc. found in each book! Provide guidance and ensure that each person in the group has a role or part of the project.

Debates – Some students love to debate. It’s in their nature. Debates can be held on just about any subject, real or made up. Debates can be done one-on-one, in small groups or with a divided classroom.

Nonverbal – Provide nonverbal response opportunities to help more bashful students feel comfortable participating. Our HOLD-‘EM-UP PADDLE BOARDS let students give an answer without being called on.

Brainstorming – It’s a great way to get those creative juices flowing!

Games – Games that are played in small groups, such as READING COMPREHENSION GAMES, require supervision from you in order to gauge each player’s participation. Games like CLASSROOM JEOPARDY!®, GEOSAFARI® QUIZ BOWL and EGGSPERT™ have a dual benefit: you can customize games to your current unit of study, and, as emcee, you have a front-row seat to observe each participant’s contribution.

Writing – Writing is truly a cross-curricular skill. It’s also easy to assess students’ mastery of it. THE TRAIT CRATES provide everything you need to teach, practice and assess writing according to the six writing traits. Our YOUNG AUTHORS’ BLANK BOOKS provide plenty of writing space for your students’ imaginations.

Peer Editing – It has many benefits. It encourages students to write for an audience, rather than for the teacher. It teaches students how to edit, which can improve their own writing, and it’s time saving for the teacher.

Quizzes/Homework – Provide no-pressure, no-grade quizzes and fun homework assignments to get a more accurate barometer of students’ understanding.

Surveys – They are a great way to “pick students’ brains” about how they really feel you (and they) are doing. Ask them how challenging an assignment it was, how they felt they did, what they learned from it, how they feel you are doing, what you can do to make things “better,” etc.

FEEDBACK

Feedback differs from assessment in that feedback is informal and ungraded. The purpose of feedback is to create open communication so both you and the student know exactly where they are and where they need to be in the learning process. Feedback can also help you know whether your class as a whole grasps the concepts being taught. How you get and give feedback to your students will vary greatly, especially depending on their grade and level of ability.

Decide on your timetable. Do you give feedback weekly or bi-weekly? The more frequent your feedback, the less time your students will have to wonder how they are doing.

Decide on your format. Will all feedback be verbal, or will some be written? No matter which format you prefer, keep this in mind:
- Be goal-oriented. Let each student know what is expected of them.
- Be specific. Rather than asking a student to read more, tell them how many more chapters you want them to read.
- Be honest.
- Be composed. Remaining calm yet clearly explaining the situation will help students feel more relaxed, yet assured you know what you are talking about.
- Be balanced. Provide both positive feedback and constructive criticism. Start and end with positive feedback. Criticism should only be based on the goals you have set. If a student hasn’t performed up to standard in another area, provide them with a challenge or goal in that area instead of offering criticism.
- Be encouraging. Let each student know you have faith in their ability to accomplish the goals you have set.
- Be objective. Do not offer feedback based on another student’s (or teacher’s) complaints.
- Be brief. Don’t overwhelm students with a huge amount of feedback. Start small.

HOT TIP: Keep parents in the loop! When you meet with students to discuss their progress, document the goals set/reached on the computer together using a simple checklist with a comments section. Each week, e-mail it (or send it home) to the parents and ask them to send it back with their own encouraging comments. This lets you know the parents saw it and lets your student know their parents care.

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