If we buy into the notion (as I have) that teaching and learning are responding, then we have to consider what that means and what that looks like. I have said before and I believe it now, I most feel like I am teaching when I am responding to my kids with feedback. It’s a different feel than when I am introducing, explaining, modeling, etc., and it is most certainly a different feel than when I am grading. It’s actually that feel (grading) that sent me down this path in the first place. It never felt right. I hated playing the judge at the end, forced to resign to and rely on the restrictions of points and percentages in the grade book. So, I walked away (but that’s not this story). This story is about–supposed to be about–capturing the magic moments (they feel like magic to me) of the feedback/response process.

Okay, to the “how” of it. How are going to capture this? And then, there’s the bigger “how.” How are we going to use it? Let’s capture it first.

I don’t think it matters–as long as we capture it. And while I am sure there are better ways (there’s always a better around the bend) and I will discover those as we move forward, my plan for right now is super simple. The kids are going to copy and paste our “conversations” from the response process in a Google Doc, titled “Feedback Journal.” Right now, all of our conversations happen in the comments of their Google Documents and in Google Classroom. But going back to each and all of those will be a pain at the end of term when kids collect their experiential evidence for their Learning Stories. So, I am going to ask them to collect these “artifacts” as we discover (create) them. I have thought about the fact that this will be “away from” the original work and the conversation will lack some context in this capture, but they can always go back to the original if necessary. In addition to our Google conversations, I have begun producing feedback videos via Screencastify when I feel like a helpful human tone is in order, which is less-easy to capture in writing, or if what is needed is easier to say than to write. So we have to capture those moments, too. And we can with the link that kids can copy and paste into their journals.

Of course, this is going to work with what we are currently doing in this distance model, for we can capture it. But once we get back in person, much of my feedback is delivered verbally, so I will have to figure out that capture. I have some ideas, but I will save them for another day.

How am I going to use it? That’s the question. Well, it will certainly become a more central, intentional part of the kids’ Learning Stories. It should be the experience; it should be the evidence. But is it? And that, there, is the focus. Was it each kid’s experience? Is there evidence? How much? How effective was it? What will their analysis reveal? Those are the questions I want answers to.

And though it will remain to be seen if my plan to capture it will help produce those answers, one thing will be certain from this point on. It will have our attention. I will be more mindful than ever of the quantity and the quality of my feedback, and so–I hope–will the kids. It is this that I want to be the center of our work, this that I want our attention to seek, not how many assignments, not how many points, but how many moments we engaged in the feedback/response process. That is where I want us to spend our attention. And this is simply the first step in that direction. And as we stumble along I will just remember–as I do in all my work–the worst ahead is better.

Thank you for allowing me to work through this. I am not sure it’s going to help anyone else, but it has sure helped me in this reflective stage of my own learning. So, thank you.

Happy Friday, all. Have a great weekend.

Do. Reflect. Do Better.