My site engages in a critical friends process that goes by the name “Friendly Feedback.” It follows a three-phase structure. During phase one, the presenter gets a set amount of time to go over their work. This time is limited so the presenter needs to focus on giving information that enables the critical friends to give feedback in the desired area. After the presenter’s time is up, the critical friends can ask any clarifying questions before moving on to the next stage. In phase two, the presenter stays silent and takes notes, preferably with their backs to the group. The critical friends then share what they like, what they wonder, and what some possible next steps are. This is almost meant to be more of a discussion between the critical friends. The friends can build off each other’s ideas and share agreement. In the final phase, the presenter returns to the group and responds to feedback. This structure as a whole is necessary because as a staff our time is limited. We could easily spend the entire critical friends time on a single teacher’s project and not finish. So, time limits and sharing structures like Like/Wonder/Next Steps are crucial.
I share this because it shapes my idea of what a good critical friend is and does. As a math teacher, my pacing and depth of project is often different than other content areas. A large PrBL unit covers 3 days. A standard ELA project covers at least 3 weeks. That difference of scope can make friendly feedback difficult. Other teachers don’t often know how to give feedback to math project. They don’t have enough insight into the content to give feedback there, the presenter doesn’t have enough time to adequately demonstrate the pedagogical activity, and many wonderful ideas about real world connections or cross class connections simply do not fit in the time math classrooms have. THe feedback is always great and I appreciate it. The ideas are usually awesome and would definitely enrich a unit or make it more authentic. I just don’t have a class period to spend doing a Skype Q&A with an expert or writing letters to city officials. Perhaps it is something I will get better at with experience, but right now it just amounts to falling behind pace or dramatically increasing the homework load for a student. So, my first characteristic of a good critical friend is context. Without context, feedback is not practical. I have received some amazing feedback on projects but sometimes I just can’t use it. That’s not the fault of the teacher who suggested it, their idea was great! They just lacked proper context for what is feasible in a math class. At my site, we have developed some resources to describe what PrBL looks like in a math classroom to increase context and understanding and it has led to more focused and powerful feedback for us. In terms of Touro, I think context is super important because of how diverse our projects are. We have different audiences and different goals for our capstones. Understanding the context of each other’s work is crucial to providing helpful feedback. Who are we trying to persuade? What resources do we want to give them? Is our work standards based, tech based, 21st Century Skills based? We all need to have some things in common in our capstone, but where is the focus? What si the message? Context is key to answering these questions. So, I feel we are all off to a good start being critical friends. Our cohort has been together for nearly a year now and we have been with each other every step of the way in developing our capstones. A second crucial element of a good critical friend, I think, is to be able to break the structure I describe at the beginning of this blog. I stand by the structure being crucial in large group or staff setting. Often times though, in our Friendly Feedback, a next step sounds like “Connect with the ELA department for this resource” or “talk to this science teacher about this online resource.” The structure, which is necessary for the sake of everyone’s time, only takes us so far. We often need to seek out additional conversations when the structure ends. What this means to me, is that a good critical friend relationship is a two way street. With the need for context in mind, I need to be able to bounce ideas off someone or have discussions or ask questions organically. Listening to a five minute presentation and then listing off my likes and wonders to a silent partner is not the most effective way to use me as a critical friend. It is a good way to get mass feedback from a diverse group, but not a way dig deep and get practical and powerful ideas from a partner. In a one on one or small group setting, there needs to be consistent dialogue. We need to discuss ideas, continuously provide context, frame ideas in terms of how the accomplish their goals. It needs to be organic and relational. I feel like our cohort is well positioned to be good critical friends to one another. We have context of each other’s work, we tend to like each other, and we are a small enough group to provide organic and practical feedback.
3 Comments
james
11/7/2017 10:40:47 am
Patrick,
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Nai Saelee
11/8/2017 03:11:51 pm
Patrick,
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In the early days, of my learning experience, I avoided the world "critical" like a traffic ticket. I thought that critical meant criticizer, but over time, I've come to recognize the importance of having someone else look at your work, and find ways that you can make it stronger and better. Now, I get frustrated when people just pat me on the head and say good job. I don't need that! I need to know how we can make it better!
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