Different Feedback Strategies to Meet Individual Teachers' Needs

            In The Learning Professional, author/leadership coach Keith Young and district director of student services Judith Mendoza Jimenez suggest three levels of feedback based on teachers’ needs and levels of experience: rapid response, moderate engagement, and expansive intervention. 

• Rapid response – Many classroom issues can be addressed quickly, say Young and Jimenez, “without the need for extended sit-down feedback sessions.” For example, during a classroom visit, an observer might prompt the teacher to check for understanding or focus on disengaged students by whispering to the teacher, handing them a note, or sending a text. “I didn’t have to wait until the end of the day to learn what the students needed,” said a teacher who appreciated the quick feedback. [Here’s a detailed discussion of real-time coaching.] 

            Another approach is having a brief feedback chat in the corridor immediately after an observation. An elementary principal found these informal conversations built rapport and helped teachers make minor instructional tweaks. Similarly, a district administrator observing a school’s faculty meeting pulled the principal aside and unobtrusively suggested a way to get input from reluctant colleagues. 

• Moderate engagement – “Some feedback needs more than a quick chat,” say Young and Jimenez, “structured enough to get into detail, yet flexible enough to fit into a busy school day.” Novice teachers might be asked to co-teach a lesson with a seasoned colleague, actively engaging with a new teaching idea without having to take full responsibility for the lesson, then debriefing afterward. Administrators might also orchestrate peer observation cycles to get teachers into each other’s classrooms and spread effective practices. 

            “It was powerful to see my colleague handle the same challenges I face – and to learn from their solutions,” said one teacher. “I also realized I need to plan my complex thinking questions in advance because improvising them during the lesson rarely worked for me.” 

            Another moderate engagement strategy is teachers recording videos of lessons and reviewing them afterward with an instructional coach. This is like athletic teams looking at game videos, say Young and Jimenez, “allowing educators to see missed opportunities, analyze strategies, and plan for improvement.” 

            For very proficient teachers who seldom need corrective feedback, the best approach might be to have them coach themselves based on rubrics, classroom videos, or an analysis of their students’ work. One experienced art teacher reviewed her students’ portfolios at the end of a semester and made a number of changes in pedagogy, lesson pacing, and scaffolding. 

• Expansive intervention – Longer, more in-depth coaching can help teachers develop new practices, improve student engagement, perhaps confront biases. An Arizona science department head engaged in a semester-long, twice-a-week coaching cycle with a novice teacher to plan lessons, observe classroom dynamics (especially student-led labs), and debrief after each classroom visit. “It wasn’t just about tweaking a lesson here or there,” said the teacher. “It was like a deep dive into everything – how I pressed my students, how I understood the standards, how I communicated during the lab, even how I handled their mistakes. I went from feeling overwhelmed to watching my students own their learning.” 

            Another idea is “ramble chats” – extended walk-and-talk conversations in which an instructional coach and an effective teacher talk informally about curriculum, pedagogy, and student learning – without the constraints of a formal agenda. “This type of feedback,” say Young and Jimenez, “proves well-suited to teachers who are either highly experienced or highly self-reflective or, ideally, both. The open-ended and time-consuming nature of these conversations fosters deep reflection and creative problem solving.” 

            The goal of this kind of differentiated support, conclude Young and Jimenez: “a professional learning culture where every individual feels seen, supported, and inspired to make changes – from quick adjustments to deep transformations. That kind of continuous improvement is possible when we reimagine feedback as not just a tool for addressing deficiencies, but as a catalyst for growth, innovation, and empowerment.”  

“3 Essential Feedback Categories for Inspiring Educator Growth” by Keith Young and Judith Mendoza Jimenez in The Learning Professional, February 2025 (Vol. 46, #1, pp. 34-37)

Please Note: This summary is reprinted with permission from issue #1079 of The Marshall Memo, an excellent resource for educators.

Graphic Novels About Immigration

             In School Library Journal, Brigid Alverson recommends these graphic novels on the joys and challenges of the immigration experience: 

• Speak Up, Santiago! A Hillside Valley Graphic Novel by Julie Anta, illustrated by Gabi Mendez, grade 3-7
• Uprooted: A Memoir About What Happens When Your Family Moves Back by Ruth Chan, grade 3-
• How to Draw a Secret by Cindy Chang, grade 3-7
• History Comics: Ellis Island, Immigration, and the American Dream by Felipe Galindo Feggo, illustrated by Tait Howard, grade 4-9
• Just Another Story: A Graphic Migration Account by Ernesto Saade, grade 7 and up
• This Land Is Our Land: A Blue Beetle Story by Julio Anta, illustrated by Jacoby Salcedo, grade 8-12
• Unaccompanied: Stories of Brave Teenagers Seeking Asylum by Tracy White, grade 10 and up

 “Coming Home” by Brigid Alverson in School Library Journal, March 2025 (Vol. 71, #3, pp. 47-49)

Please Note: This summary is reprinted with permission from issue #1078 of The Marshall Memo, an excellent resource for educators.

How Instructional Leadership Teams Can Catalyze Effective Practices

(Originally titled “How Teacher Teams Can Transform School Practices”) 

            “The time is ripe for faculty-wide conversations around strengthening instructional practice,” says New York City principal M-J Mercanti-Anthony in Educational Leadership. This is important, he believes, because many teachers are unaware of recent research findings and continue to use outmoded and, in some cases, discredited practices with their students. 

            Mercanti-Anthony lists four reasons why the best thinking on teaching and learning is not being implemented more widely: 

• Teacher and administrator training programs have gaps, especially in cognitive science. 
• Educators’ egos are caught up in their work, and feedback can be taken personally.
• Schools’ egg-crate culture often prevents highly effective practices from being shared.
• Many teachers are wise to the “faux discovery” process: they’re asked to try out a new practice and gather data, only to learn they’re being manipulated into adopting it. 

How can principals address these impediments and foster sincere, productive discussion of best practices? 

            Mercanti-Anthony believes the key is good use of a school’s instructional leadership team (ILT). Members should be recruited based on their capacity and willingness to explore the research, take a fresh look at teaching and learning in the school, and commit to weekly meetings. It must be clear that other groups in the school will deal with discipline policies, the bell schedule, planning school events, and test data, allowing the ILT to be laser-focused on instruction. A step-by-step roll-out of an ILT’s work over time:

• Studying the science of how people learn – Mercanti-Anthony suggests that the ILT spend several months exploring often-untapped research findings, including:
• Retrieval practice;
• Spaced review;
• Interleaving;
• Connecting abstract concepts with concrete examples;
• Building metacognitive skills so students self-monitor and learn from mistakes;
• Asking questions that get students thinking deeply and elaborating. 

During this exploration phase, some ILT members may begin experimenting with new ideas in their classrooms.  

• Choosing one strategy – The ILT organically chooses a strategy to introduce to the faculty – for example, putting retrieval practice to work with the “brain dump” plan. “ILTs should resist the temptation of introducing more than one strategy at a time,” says Mercanti-Anthony. 

• Taking the practice to scale – To get the idea widely adopted, the key is peer-to-peer discussion groups, lesson study teams, and teachers visiting classrooms trying the new practice. 

• Repeating – Once the initial strategy is launched, the ILT chooses another, studies it in depth, and follows the same dissemination strategy. 

            If the ILT follows these steps, says Mercanti-Anthony, colleagues won’t see subsequent ideas as “one more thing.” He sees this as a multi-year process, “providing resources, suggestions, and assistance in keeping the process moving forward.” 

“How Teacher Teams Can Transform School Practices” by M-J Mercanti-Anthony in Educational Leadership, March 2025 (Vol. 82, #6, pp. 28-34)

Please Note: This summary is reprinted with permission from issue #1078 of The Marshall Memo, an excellent resource for educators.

The Art and Science of Interactive Readalouds

 (Originally titled “A Better Way to Read Aloud”) 

            In this Educational Leadership article, Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey (San Diego State University and Health Sciences High and Middle College) say that reading aloud to students has great potential for learning – if it’s done well. Here are the key factors they noticed when they observed and interviewed 25 highly effective grade 3-8 teachers: 

• A well-chosen text that will capture students’ interest and address a learning need; 
• Preparing and practicing beforehand to formulate questions and be able to read fluently;
• Establishing a clear purpose with students – a concept or skill they will learn;
• Reading with accuracy, correct pronunciation, appropriate rate, fluency, expression, phrasing, and enthusiasm;
• Engaging students with facial expressions and hand gestures;
• Discussing the text before, during, and after the readaloud – ideas, the author’s style and choice of words, key vocabulary, predictions;
• Connecting the text to reading and writing that students are doing – for example, writing a letter to one of the characters in the story or comparing the text to something else students have read. 

For primary-grade students, Fisher and Frey suggest the additional element of print referencing – drawing attention to letters, words, punctuation, and print concepts like left-to-right directionality. 

 “A Better Way to Read Aloud” by Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey in Educational Leadership, March 2025 (Vol. 82, #6, pp. 10-11)

Please Note: This summary is reprinted with permission from issue #1077 of The Marshall Memo, an excellent resource for educators.