Best Practices for Continuous Teacher Feedback

One of the biggest time wasters in schools this time of year? The evaluation process.   Don't get me wrong. Clear performance evaluation is critical in any industry, especially one as vital as K-12 education.   So many schools get this so wrong. For example, many districts use the Danielson rubric to evaluation teaching. On the NY state website, there is a link to a 42-page Danielson rubric. Forty. Two. Pages. On page 42, the rubric included the instruction to evaluate whether "students create materials for Back-to-School Night that outline the approach for learning science."   Seriously?   The problem is that these 42-page rubrics and full-period observations and hours writing up the reports don't do anything to improve teacher practice. They make good leaders do unnecessary work, and they allow ineffective leaders to hide behind a seriously flawed process.   What's the alternative?   I coach school leaders to support teachers using a simple, 4-page rubric that answers the following questions: 1) Classroom Environment: Do the expectations and relationships create the conditions for powerful learning? 2) Rigor: Are students engaged in content aligned to grade-level standards? Is the teacher intellectually prepared to focus on the meat of the lesson?  3) Feedback: Do students know what high-quality work looks like? Does the teacher affirm and challenge students to produce top-quality work?    4) Thinking: Are students doing the heavy lifting? Are teachers holding all students accountable to do the heavy lifting?    Teachers are observed frequently with a weekly coaching meeting that supports them based on this simple rubric.   Then, at evaluation time, instead of dog-and-pony shows with Byzantine rubrics and leaders holed up in their offices writing long reports and hosting tiresome evaluation reviews, leaders simply replace a regular coaching meeting with a mid-year and end-of-year evaluation that is simple and effective:   Are you on track to meeting your goals? Why/why not? Based on our four key teaching questions, where are you consistently meeting the mark? Where is your top area for growth? What would a plan of support for that area look like?   The evaluation takes the leader less than 30 minutes to write up and less than 30 minutes to do with the teacher and has 100X the impact of long evaluation processes.    

One of my biggest learnings from leading summer professional development for teachers? If you want a culture of feedback, you have to intentionally do so. The first step is to have short and sweet surveys (daily for summer PD, weekly thereafter). Most leaders do this. But to ensure the survey truly builds a culture of feedback and continuous improvement, I've learned three things: ✅ Ask focused questions. Simply, we get the data that we ask for. Ask both about the content and the general format of PD. For content, a few questions can be: What is one practice you are excited to try?; What is one thing you remain unclear on? What is one thing you know you will need further support on? For format, a simple Keep-Start-Stop can be super helpful. ✅ Review the data with your leadership team- This will allow you to process the feedback, add any additional color based on observations, and design a game plan. This can include differentiating groups, shifting a summer PD schedule or changing up future case studies and role plays to better address where the team is at. During the year, it will help you focus your observations. ✅ Respond to the feedback-It's not enough to make changes to the day based on the feedback. If you are giving people surveys, you must discuss the trends you saw and address these so that folks know they are being heard. Articulate how you are shifting things or if you can't, address where concerns or confusions will be addressed. When folks hear how their feedback is being heard they are more likely to be honest in the future. For concerns or feedback that only 1 or 2 folks have? Follow up individually. The time invested early on will pay dividends later. I know these tips don't only apply to school leaders, though Summer PD is definitely top of my mind. What are your tips and 1% solutions in building a culture of feedback and continuous improvement?

In almost every school I've ever visited, the issue isn't the teachers. It's not the leaders. And it's definitely not the kids. But here's the reality in too many schools: inconsistent instruction, stagnant student achievement, frustrated teachers, and overwhelmed leaders. That story was no different in a network of 7 schools we've been working with this year. But it's not the story now. Let me share what we did, not because I think it's magic, but because I think anyone can do it. Here's what we did: 1. Defined the vision for every block of the day: We mapped out what excellence looked like in every key instructional block: - What should an effective reading lesson look like? - What are non-negotiables in math instruction? - How do we leverage history to build background knowledge? - How does science become high rigor and high engagement? - What does student engagement actually look like, sound like, and feel like when we walk into any space in the school? That level of clarity removed guesswork for teachers and gave leaders a shared framework for observations. 2. Every teacher was coached, every week. - Short, focused observations (15-20 minutes, not full-period evaluations) - Immediate, actionable feedback on one key lever, not a laundry list of suggestions - Weekly one-on-one coaching meetings held sacred 3. Set weekly goals to measure progress: Instead of waiting for benchmark assessments, we built simple, weekly indicators of progress: - Are students engaged in learning in every block of the day? - Are students getting plenty of time to independently practice? - Are math exit tickets showing mastery of the lesson objective? - Are teachers implementing feedback from the last coaching session? Small wins led to big momentum. A narrow focus helped teachers and leaders stop feeling like they were doing the most and not seeing any progress. 4. Action planning based on data: No more “data meetings” that were just numbers on a slide. - We reviewed student work together, identified breakdowns, and built immediate next steps. - Teachers left each meeting with a plan they could apply the next day, not vague goals for next quarter. The results: Student proficiency increased by double digits in both reading and math benchmarks within one year. Teachers felt more supported and reported higher confidence in their instruction. Leaders shifted from putting out fires to proactively coaching and driving instructional improvement. If your school or network is struggling with initiative overload, the answer isn’t more programs. It’s more clarity. And the discipline to do some simple things really, really well.